


Secrets and Saviours

by Valkyrie_Of_The_Night (ChuckStruck23), Zenith_Prince_of_the_Sun



Series: The Embers of Freedom Trilogy [1]
Category: Divergent (Movies), Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Abstract Incest, Adultery! Adultery Everywhere!, Candor or Dauntless, Delayed War, Everything Except Dragons!, F/F, F/M, Good Guy Eric, I should stop now....., If You Squint - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Plotlines, Prank Wars!, Slow Burn, The Author Regrets Nothing, You'll Never See It Coming, sooo many tags!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-25 06:05:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 31,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3799657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChuckStruck23/pseuds/Valkyrie_Of_The_Night, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zenith_Prince_of_the_Sun/pseuds/Zenith_Prince_of_the_Sun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a story that you will never guess the end of, Click here. Plot twists galore as our favourite bunch of Dauntless welcome a new group of initiates, and a whole new lot of drama into their lives. How will Tris and Four cope with a prank war happening around them? Will Eric ever admit he is human? Will Zen ever find his mum? Who is Jeanine blackmailing this time? How life-changing can a game of Candor or Dauntless really be? And just how many women has Andrew Prior knocked up? Life in Dauntless will never have the opportunity to be normal again!</p><p>(A ridiculous amount of questions for a ridiculously complicated fanfic)</p><p>TRIGGER WARNING FOR CHILD ABUSE IN LATER CHAPTERS</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Making an Entrance

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning, This may start off Mary-Sue like, but soon you will be wishing it stayed that simple!
> 
> Enjoy
> 
> Valkyrie & Zenith

 

Disclaimer:  
If we could live in this wonderful world and own these amazing characters, we would. But we can't. So we don't. We only own Valkyrie Mathews, Zenith Thompson, and their non-canon friends and situations. No copyright infringement intended, everything else, especially everything identifiable, belongs to Veronica Roth.

 

ERIC POV

 

As far as days went, in some ways this one was fairly normal. It was the end of the summer of the year 2270 in the once great city of Chicago. The sun was out and there wasn't a single cloud smudging the perfect blue sky as far as the eye could see. It was warm, but not too hot. The peak of the dry season had just passed, and it had rained the night before, leaving the grass and weeds around the city a vibrant and rich green carpet.

In other ways, however, this day was anything but normal. A large group was gathering outside the central hub of the city, a miss-match of vibrant colours. The orange, yellow, and reds of the Amity faction, as always laughing and singing among themselves, hugging sporadically. The varying shades of blue marking the Erudite apart from the mixed black and white of the Candor as they either debated passionately or chatted amicably. Huddled together, the grey blob that was Abnegation tried to go unnoticed, but stood out like a sore thumb anyway, silent and subdued. However, one thing all of the people had in common, regardless of faction, was immediately noticeable in the air surrounding them. An excited apprehension was obvious to any who paid attention to their surroundings. Understandable. After all, today was a very important day.

Today was this year's choosing ceremony.

_And another day that is a complete waste of my time._

Eric leapt out of the train car without hesitation, landing elegantly and effortlessly as always. This was the third choosing ceremony he had attended, The first being his own at the age of sixteen where he had transferred from Erudite to Dauntless, and the other two being as a leader and representative of Dauntless. Every year since his choosing had been the same. The first person called always invariably chose their birth faction. About five people later, the first transfer would happen, and as always, shocked gasps would fill the room. Then another, and another. By the end he would have a posse of about ten or twelve of the little brats to take back to Dauntless, and about fifteen to twenty Dauntless-born brats also. He was confident that this year would be no different. It was, to be honest, starting to bore him.

_Well, more boring than last year. At least I had Tris to torture last year._

His assumptions were all but blown out of the water as he was halted from his deliberate pace towards the hub by someone tapping on his shoulder.

He hesitated only a moment to compose his glare before turning around.

Standing before him was a young woman from Erudite. Well, that was what he assumed from her attire. She was a little under six foot he guessed, being her height measured about to his chin. She had light blonde, wavy hair to her waist and was of a medium build, curved but not too curvy.

Nicely proportioned, now that he thought about it.

Her face wasn't too bad to look at either, with full lips and a slim, but not too narrow nose. Her most striking feature though, was her eyes. Deep pools of hazely green, framed with long eyelashes that dusted her cheeks when she blinked. They had to be accentuated by mascara.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a warning flag went up. She looked familiar somehow.

As he was giving her the once over, he faintly heard her mutter something under her breath.

“Take a picture why don't you. It'll last longer. Who am I kidding, at this rate he's not going to stop staring.”

“Excuse me?” Eric scowled, and was immediately rewarded by those enchanting green orbs darting to meet his own steely blue ones.

“Never mind. You are Eric, one of the five Dauntless leaders, right?” The girl quickly changed the subject.

“Yes. What the hell do you want?” Eric rolled his eyes.

“Ooh touchy. But if blunt is the tone of the day, I might as well get straight to the point.” She replied, a smile hinting at the corners of her mouth. “I need a favour. You are the only one who can do it.”

Eric gave her a level stare for a moment or two. He eventually concluded that this girl seemed to be serious.

“OK, you have piqued my interest. Shoot.” He replied, eyebrow raised casually.

“Good. I need you to smuggle some weapons through the choosing ceremony for me.” She replied getting straight to the point as promised.

“And why, pray tell, would I do that?” Eric asked, not showing his surprise at her answer. “Coming to think of it, what do you need weapons for anyway?” He added.

“I'm transferring to Dauntless. I don't want to leave them behind.” She answered simply. “And you strike me as the type who would do it if you had the right sort of incentive.”

“What could you possibly offer me?” Eric asked, an amused expression taking over his face.

“I'll teach you how to wield them.” She replied with ease.

“Kid, I dunno if you have noticed or not, but I am more than one of the more lethal Dauntless. I am a highly trained combat specialist. I sincerely doubt there is anything you could teach me. I know how to wield almost any weapon” he bragged unashamedly.

“As you said, ALMOST. I know for a fact that you can't wield what I have. Neither can anyone else in Dauntless to my knowledge.”

Eric simply raised an eyebrow before answering.,

“What type of weapons are we talking then? Some new Erudite concoction?”

The girl sighed and rolled her eyes. Eric narrowed his eyes at her.

_She is cute but her nerve is beginning to wear my patience thin._

“It's easier if I show you.” She turned and walked a few paces before looking back at him. “Coming or not?”

Eric followed her over to a bench near the railway tracks. He watched as the girl glanced around carefully before extracting a long bundle of something wrapped in cloth. She held it carefully in her arms as if cradling a baby or a valuable treasure.

“Here” She said, unwrapping the bundle gently before turning to show him the contents.

Inside were what appeared to be two twin katanas. Each was composed of a beautifully sculpted stainless steel hilt and hand guard, with the hand holds wrapped in thick leather for the purpose of adding extra grip, and a long, highly polished and clearly well maintained black wooden scabbard inset with a silver wing-like symbol on either side.

Eric stepped forward and carefully freed one of the blades from its sheath, gazing reverently at the newly exposed perfectly machined blade, his face, he imagined, showing complete and utter awe. There was no hiding his emotions any more. He had only read about swords of this calibre in his history texts as a kid, and never in his life had he thought he would get to hold one.

“What's to stop me from just keeping them” Eric asked, getting straight to the point.

“They are useless to you if you can't wield them. Sure they would make a nice wall decoration but people like you and I can't resist. A weapon is a weapon. It should be used as such. If you can't wield them, why own them?” She replied.

Eric sighed, somewhat peeved that she seemed to know him so well, but also a little....thrilled?

“What is your name, Initiate?” he asked.

“At the moment, Amirina. But that will change later today.”

“Well Amirina, You've convinced me.” He reached out and took the bundled swords, hiding them back in their place under the bench. “However, I am not stupid enough to take a strange bundle with me into the choosing ceremony. It would draw too much attention and this seems like something that calls for discretion. I will grab them on the way out.” He looked at his watch. “We better get going, the ceremony starts soon.”

No sooner than the words were out of his mouth than a voice called Amirina's name from the direction of the hub. They both turned in response.

“Amirina! Hurry up, you are going make me late! That cannot happen! Today is important and I can't have you making me look careless!”

Eric startled a little as he instantly recognised the figure of Jeanine Mathews looking in their direction, clearly exasperated. He turned to look at the girl beside him curiously.

Her face had completely transformed in a fraction of a second from cocky and confident, dare he say it, Dauntless, to calm and polite, nearly Abnegation-like.

“Of course not mother, sorry to distress you.” She replied, almost sickeningly sweet.

She was quickly rewarded with a triumphant smile from Jeanine.

“What are you doing talking to Eric anyway? You should not be wasting his time, he has a Faction to run.”

“Of course, I was just asking him about the dauntless patrols and if I could possibly get some data off of him for my initiation project.” She replied again too sweetly for Eric's liking. “I was thinking about analysing their routes and comparing it to trouble spots, to see if the patrols are effective or if they could be improved.”

 _Definitely not transferring to Candor then_ , Eric thought.

Jeanine looked slightly surprised at this development.

“I though you were interested in serums?”

“I am, but I thought that since you are the leading expert on them it would make sense for me to do something different, you know, add to our family reputation instead of being limited by it.” The girl smiled.

Jeanine appeared to buy it without much thought.

“Sounds like a wise choice. However, I am still curious, why ask Eric? Max or Harrison might have been more agreeable.” Jeanine asked as if she had forgotten his presence.

“Eric seems to be helpful enough to me.” Amirina replied, acting somewhat confused.

“Of course. You aren't half bad on the eyes. I'm sure he has some ideas of how you will repay the favour of which you ask.” Jeanine raised an eyebrow.

“Isn't half bad my arse” Eric muttered, looking pointedly at Amirina. Jeanine narrowed her eyes at him.

“Well it's a good job I will be out of his reach when I choose Erudite today then isn't it?” Amirina added quickly.

“Yes, I suppose it is.” Jeanine scoffed. “Finish up quickly, the ceremony starts soon.” And with that Jeanine turned and strode into the hub.

Amirina's face changed and once again the cocky, confident, and somewhat intense girl stood before him. Before she could speak, Eric did.

“That's quite a mask you've got there. You are almost frighteningly good at putting it on and taking it off.”

“I learn quickly. Do we have a deal concerning my swords, or not?” She almost snapped at him.

Eric raised an eyebrow, narrowing his eyes.

_Not liking her mother is one thing, but talking to me like that will not do._

Amirina had he decency to look a little ashamed of herself but did not back down.

Eric gave up after a minute or two of trying to stare her down, as for some odd reason it wasn't working.

_Must be having an off day._

“Yes, I will help you. Now lets go, It's time for you to choose.”

“One moment, I just have to get ready” and with that Amirina ducked inside the hub and immediately headed for the ladies room. Eric mentally noted to himself that at least she didn't need a friend to go to the bathroom.

_Not that I would mind going with her._

His signature smirk took over his face at the thought as he walked into the main auditorium in the hub. It stayed there when even as he took his seat among the other Dauntless leaders at the back of the section.


	2. Making a Choice

FOUR POV

The ceremony was just as long and boring as he had remembered it being when he was an initiate. At least this time he didn't have to panic about how his father was going to react.

For the millionth time that hour, he wondered when Max would give up on trying to make him a leader so he could go back to avoiding city-wide events like this.

 _Not that I don't like leaving the compound occasionally, or being treated like a leader for that matter. There is just too much opportunity for Father to cause me trouble_.

He watched as this year's crop of sixteen year-olds filed through, some transferring as he had, but most staying with their birth factions.

Then, a familiar name is called

“Nathaniel Thompson?”

The tall, dark skinned, curly haired boy with a familiar cheeky smile and mischief filled eyes took to the stage with an air of confidence. He began to feel a little bit anxious. What if Nate transferred out of dauntless? How would Max and the others cope?

_Or worse still, what if he stays?!_

He watched on as Nate strides confidently over to the Dauntless coals. The knife in his hands sliced cleanly through his palm and his blood hit the coals with a deeply satisfying hiss. Nate was to remain in Dauntless. Four smiled.

_This will make Zeke, and Uriah very happy._

He also frowned slightly as he realised how much trouble Nate will be if he kept his promises and joined the Petrad's prank crew.

_Scratch the if. WHEN he honours his promise._

Four realised he was in for a long initiation this year.

Another familiar name caught his attention.

“Hector Taylor?”

Four watched as Shauna and Lynn's little brother stepped up onto the stage and cut his palm. Just as he was about to tip his hand over the dauntless coals, he hesitated. He appeared to take a moment to re-think his choice before tipping his hand.

His blood landed almost silently on the pile of dirt in the Amity bowl.

Hector was the first to transfer out of Dauntless. Saddened on behalf of Hector's family, Four still managed a smile and nodded in encouragement at the boy as he turned to give one final look at his birth faction. It was his choice, Four was glad he didn't let anything stop him from making the right choice for himself.

Johanna smiled as Hector was welcomed with open arms into his new faction, before continuing to announce the names.

“Audrey Smithson?”

An Erudite girl stepped forward confidently and cut her palm. She held her hand over the bowl and deftly tipped her blood onto the coals. Shaking a little she stepped down from the stage and into the cheering mass of her new faction.

 _One initiate transfers, another takes their place. Dauntless never loses or gains._ Four thought to himself as the new transfer took her seat.

The names continued into the R's, and on and on until the M's without incident. And then something happened. A name was called... but there is no person to answer.

“Amirina Mathews?” Johanna called out again. No answer. “Third and final call for Miss Amirina Mathews”.

In the Erudite section Four noticed that Jeanine Mathews has gone pale and rigid in her seat. She looked around anxiously and the Erudite began to mutter to themselves.

Out of the corner of his eye, Four also noticed Eric, his face showed confusion and.....worry?

Johanna was about to open her mouth to continue on to the next name when a loud bang sounded to the right side of the auditorium as the doors burst open.

A figure, dressed head to toe in black leather with her blonde hair pulled into a pony tail strode up to the stage, a determined look on her face.

_All she is missing is the tattoos._

“Miss Mathews?” Johanna asked somewhat hesitantly. The girl nodded curtly.

The Erudite gasped. Eric smiled.

Scratch that, Eric beamed. Almost with a sense of.....pride?

Jeanine paled even more.

The girl took the knife offered and slit her palm. Four saw the bright red blood pool against the pale skin of her hand. She turned to the Erudite sector, and looked directly at Jeanine.

“Faction before Blood Mother.” Her voice dripped with sass, before she thrust her hand out and turned her palm over.

Her blood dripped in slow motion onto the Dauntless coals. Despite her appearance, everyone, including Four, was momentarily shocked at her choice.

“DAUNTLESS” Johanna announced into the sudden silence.

Then the cheering erupted from Dauntless and she was carried to her new faction on the members shoulders. Erudite watched on with stony faces, devoid of emotion. Though a hint of shock could still be seen on Jeanine's face.

To his left, Eric smiled once again before glaring in Four's direction as he noticed him watching.

 _Interesting,_ Four thought.

_This year may be more fun than I initially thought._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to review!


	3. Sussing out the New Girls

NATE POV

Nate watched on as the girl was dumped unceremoniously but good naturedly into an empty seat at the front of the Dauntless section. Her lilting laughter echoed in his ears as she punched one of the people who dropped her in the shoulder.

She was actually kinda cute, this one. Why hadn't he noticed her before? She was ex-Erudite, so she must have gone to school religiously. Not that he had attended as much as he should have, but surely he would have at least noticed her body.

As he thought this through, he looked a little more intently at said body. Curvy, but not fat by any means. She looked like she had a fair amount of stamina. No clear muscle definition on her though, which didn't surprise, her being a book worm. Maybe there could be a little, but her clothes were long-sleeved and he couldn't see her legs from his vantage point. Nice hair, sort of like corn silk. Luscious lips. Weird green eyes though.

On the rating scale, maybe an eight or nine out of ten. Uriah and Zeke would probably rate her the same as Tris.

_Wonder what education she's had in the bedroom. Maybe I could teach her a thing or two..._

“Zoe Kravitz”

The next name was called and Nate refocused on the situation at hand as a leggy Candor girl with darkish skin and dark black/brown hair took to the stage.

_This one ain’t too bad on the eyes either....._

“Alyssia Kang?”

Johanna called out the next name and another Candor initiate transferred to Dauntless, as Nate continued to study the first Candor transfer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please don't forget to review and kudos!


	4. Making a Run of it

AMIRINA POV

Sitting there with Dauntless all around her was electrifying. The energy pulsing through Amirina's entire body was lending her a mix of nervousness and excitement. Everyone around her was laughing, joking and jostling with one another, a writhing sea of energy and life.

Off to the right Erudite sat in seemingly dignified silence, not a single one of them looked her way, though the whispers still continued. They were rim-rod in their seats, staring straight ahead, the mere memory of having to sit that way had her slouching in her seat just for the sake of defiance.

She'd done it, she'd escaped, she was free from the clutches of her controlling, overbearing mother.

Best of all, She Was Dauntless!

_I didn't give my swords to Eric for nothing._

This thought had just passed through her mind when she saw Eric sneaking out of the auditorium, no doubt on his way to collect her swords.

_Is it just me or is he smiling?_

After a brief moment of confusion Amirina thought she must have been seeing things.

Suddenly all around her the sea of black began to move, changing into a rushing, whooping torrent heading for the doors. Letting loose a loud whoop herself, Amirina hesitated only a moment before turning and giving her mother the finger one last time. Then rushing out the door she sprinted to the front of the pack where Eric had re-emerged.

She had always found running easy. Any sort of physical activity seemed to come to her naturally. She was in every way built for Dauntless life. However, even though she could have easily run at a faster pace she was very careful when running at the front of the pack with Eric. Matching his pace, she stayed a half step behind him, as running beside him would be seen as challenging him, and overtaking him would be simply disrespectful. He was a Dauntless Leader after all. She could not afford to make him her enemy when at the drop of a hat he could make her factionless.

Besides, the last thing she wanted was to throw away her new found freedom. She knew that if she were to become factionless her mother would soon be able to find a justifiable way to get her back under her control.

Being under her mother's control again was literally a fate worse than death to her. She shuddered just thinking about it, causing Eric to give her a concerned questioning look.

She didn't need his pity.

She didn't want his pity.

Amirina scowled at the thought and picked up her pace, overtaking Eric just as they reached the support beams for the city rail system.


	5. Riding the Tracks

ERIC POV

Eric didn't know why, but he couldn't get her out of his head.

He collected her swords quickly before setting off at a run, hearing the rest of Dauntless coming crashing out of the doors just behind him.

His attention was drawn to her once again when she showed up just behind him during the run, always staying a respectful half pace back from him. When she shook her head the movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention, causing him to turn and look fully at her.

He was shocked to see an expression of pain on her face. He only became aware that, in his moment of shock, his mask had slipped to show his concern when she her face changed into a quick scowl, and she picked up her pace, overtaking him.

Without any hesitation, she ran straight up to one of the support beams and scurried up to the tracks with ease. Almost like she had been doing it her whole life.

Almost like a born Dauntless.

_Almost._

If it weren't for her clearly logical climbing technique and the careful placement of her foot and hand holds, Eric could almost forget she had been just another one of the Erudite earlier that morning.

Eric scowled as he realised if he didn't hurry up he would miss the train.

_That would be so humiliating... bad enough that an initiate overtook him! She was going to have to pay for that later...._

With a final swing, Eric heaved himself up onto the side of the tracks and walked over to where Amirina was getting ready to run.

“You overtook me.” He growled in her ear, satisfied when she jumped in shock.

“You were too slow.” She recovered quickly and replied with a cocky smile.

Eric was about to reply when the train rounded the corner and Amirina took off at a sprint. He sighed and tried to keep up with her as she grabbed onto a handhold, opened the door, and swung herself into the first compartment of the train.

The leader's compartment.

_Would her cockiness never end?_

Eric was too busy pondering this to jump until he realised he was running out of space to... well.... run. Luckily for him, just as he was nearing the edge of the board walk a hand shot out of the compartment and yanked him inside. He looked up to see who had saved his butt from an untimely death only to come face to face with Amirina herself.

“Your welcome, and by the way, I don't recommend street diving. Ever.” She smiled at him.

All Eric could muster in reply was a scowl.

“Growl me later, times a-wasting. Hand over my swords, You landed pretty hard and I need to check that they are OK.” She replied.

“Never mind about the more breakable component then” Eric muttered.

“Breakable component?” Amirina raised an eyebrow.

“Me!” Eric replied indignantly. “People break easier than steel!”

“You're a big boy, surely you can look after yourself.” she quipped in response, unable to hide her smile. “What would you want me to do if you were hurt anyway? Kiss it better? Cause I'm sorry, but that's not my thing.”

Eric sighed and handed over the swords, wincing slightly as if in pain. He was rewarded with a flicker of concern on Amirina's face before she busied herself checking over her weapons.

 _Not so cold hearted after all huh_. Eric thought to himself. _You do care, you just don't want to show it. Shame. Smart though. If you're not careful, someone will use it against you._

“'They're OK, nothing a bit of polishing won't fix.” Amirina announced after ten minutes of inspecting and rewrapping the blades. “We need to get off soon, right?” She looked to Eric for a response.

Eric hung his head out of the open compartment door, seeing the roof of Dauntless not too far ahead.

“Yeah, better get ready to jump.” He replied.

“Jump?” She asked

“How else does one get off a moving train onto a roof?” Eric quipped

Amirina only sighed and rose to her feet, handing the re-wrapped swords back to Eric.

“Tell me when.” She looked to Eric for guidance.

“Now.” Eric replied, and with that leapt out of the compartment, landing solidly on his feet.

Much to his astonishment, not a millisecond later Amirina stood beside him, stumbling slightly yet still keeping her footing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review!


	6. A Jump and a Twist

AMIRINA/VALKYRIE POV

She didn't stick the landing the way she had hoped to. She stumbled clumsily as her ankle turned on it's side on impact with the gravel covered roof. Sharp pain shot up her calf as a tendon was stretched to the verge of over-extension.

She muffled a very unladylike curse and quickly righted herself, ignoring the pain in her leg as she turned to look for Eric.

He stood beside her, looking kind of stunned in her opinion. He quickly snapped out of his shock-induced stupor, turned and started walking along the roof. She could have sworn she heard him mutter something about nobody ever staying on their feet the first time.

He was about half way along the roof when he turned and approached the edge, stepping up onto the ledge and turning to watch the other transfer initiates as they picked themselves up off the ground they had landed on and walked over to him.

“Listen up initiates!” Eric's voice took on a commanding tone that Amirina thought suited him. “My name is Eric, I am one of four leaders here in Dauntless. I will be overseeing your initiation.”

Amirina could see that most of the initiates were scared of the very idea of Eric as an authority figure. Especially one they would be seeing everyday for the rest of initiation. All three of the Candor girls were visibly shaking, and one of the Erudite guys was wiping sweaty palms not-so-discreetly on his pants. The others either avoided eye contact entirely or their eyes were glued to him as if looking away for a second would cause him to make them factionless.

They were scared.

They were weak.

She had to blend in. Maybe appearing to be a bit weaker would be to her advantage. If they didn't know what she could do, maybe, just maybe she might even make some friends.

_No. No friends. Bad idea. If I make any friends before the end of initiation, they could be eliminated and then it would just end up hurting me. Play weak to gain the upper hand in the first round of fights only. Strategic advantage only. Friends are a weakness. Weakness cannot be tolerated._

Amirina mentally cursed as she realised she sounded just like her mother. She zoned back in just in time to hear Eric mention the words “Dauntless entrance” and “jump.”

“So, who's feeling brave?” Eric asked, eyes sweeping over the assembled group, before fixing firmly on her. “What about you, Mathews? Not scared of heights, are you?” A cruel smile graced his face, as if he thought he would humiliate her this way.

 _Screw playing weak. I'll show him._ Amirina thought as she glared right back at him.

“Heights? Not a problem.” She replied cockily. She strode in what she hoped was a confident manner up to the ledge, popping up beside Eric who by this time was looking at her like she was a thorn in his side.

“What? Was I supposed to be intimidated or something, Eric? Cause that ain't gonna happen” she quipped, flashing him a wicked smile.

And with that, she back-flipped off the ledge and fell into the darkness.

The shock of the net catching her body at the bottom knocked the air out of her lungs, but she did not scream. She had to protect her image, now that she had decided to act like a bad-ass.

She was lying there catching her breath when the net pulled down to one side and she rolled towards an outstretched hand.

“You pushed?” a gruff voice asked when she pulled herself out of the net and was helped down to the floor below.

“Nope. Didn't wanna listen to Eric run his mouth any more” She quipped.

That nearly got a snigger out of Mr. gruff voice.

“With that attitude I guess you're lucky he didn't throw you down here himself.” A female voice replied as a youngish looking girl stepped out of the shadows. “My name is Six and this is Four. We'll be your instructors for initiation.” She added, holding out a hand.

“Hi. My name is Valkyrie.” Amirina took her hand and shook it firmly in greeting, not blinking an eye at the whole numbers for names thing. She did however note that Four offered no greeting other than a grunt. He had to be hiding something. His posture was stiff and his manner cold, detached, and wary.

“You sure you wanna keep that name? It's quite long.” Four asked.

“It's better than my real one” She replied shortly.

Four only raised an eyebrow and wrote her name on the clipboard in his other hand.

“Make the announcement Six.” He instructed as the next initiate fell screaming into the net.

“First Jumper, Valkyrie” Tris bellowed with a volume Valkyrie had not thought she could possess.

A cheer erupted from the shadows as members stepped forward to welcome her. She only faintly heard Four announce the next jumper as being someone called Zenith.

Once all of the initiates had jumped, well, at least all of the ones that had the guts, Four got all of them to gather around him. There were 10 Dauntless-Borns and 10 transfers present in the group. Of the transfers, three girls and a boy were from Candor, two guys, a girl, and Valkyrie herself from Erudite, and a girl and a boy from Amity. None were from Abnegation.

“Listen up. My name is Four, this is Six, and Christina. In the net over there is Eric, who you have already met. We'll be your instructors for the duration of initiation. Dauntless-Born, you don't need a tour I assume so you can follow Christina now.”

He paused as the Dauntless-Born initiates filed out.

“So that leaves you transfers with me, Eric, and Six” Four began again before being interrupted by one of the Candor transfers sticking up her hand.

“What?” Eric asked tersely.

“Just wondering, what's with the numbers for names thing these two have going on?” she squeaked in response. “Were 1, 2, 3, and 5 taken?” She muttered afterwards with a bit more cockiness.

Four sighed and walked up to her slowly.

“What's your name, initiate?” he asked in a soft voice.

“Lyss” the girl replied.

“Well Lyss, if I wanted to listen to smart-mouth Candors all day, every day, I would have joined their Faction instead.” Fours voice had gone very quiet, and sounded incredibly deadly. Lyss shrunk back and nodded.

Amirina began to feel more uneasy about Four. Hiding something and threatening initiates? He had to be bad news.

“Good” Four backed off and then continued as if nothing had happened. “Here in Dauntless our initiation takes place in three stages. They are physical, emotional, and mental.”

“You have to pass all three stages to make it into Dauntless.” Eric interceded, as he climbed out of the net. “In order to pass, you will be competing against your peers and the Dauntless-Born initiates. At the end of each stage, the three lowest ranking initiates will be cut.”

The other girl from Erudite whimpered and Eric levelled a glare at her.

“I suggest if you are scared to get cut you leave now. A true Dauntless wouldn't let fear shut them down. It wouldn't matter that they could fail. They would simply work harder.” Eric said coldly.

Nobody moved an inch.

“Good. Now that's settled, on with the briefing.” Four started again, before turning to walk further into the compound. “Follow me and I'll show you where you will be staying while you are undergoing initiation” He shouted over his shoulder.

He, Six, and Eric led the way through a series of passages to a large open area they called 'the pit', a bridge over an underground river they called 'the chasm', and finally to a small, damp, dimly lit room with bunk beds lining the wall. Off to the side there was an opening that Valkyrie could clearly tell led to a bathroom, as she could see rows of sinks and toilets. With no cubicles around them.

 _No privacy here then. I will have to be extra careful._ She thought to herself as Eric began to talk again.

“These are your choice accommodations.” Eric started again. “As you can see, we have spared you no expense. There are 12 beds, and only 10 of you. We expected a higher number of you would make it this far.”

Before anyone could comment, Four pointed in the direction of the bathroom.

“And of course you also have luxury en-suite bathroom facilities.” He sort of smiled as he said it. “Well, you better get changed. Clothes can be found on the beds. Toss your old stuff into the fire when you're done. You don't need them any more. Faction before blood. We will come collect you to take you to dinner in half an hour.”

And with that he and Six turned and left the room. Eric went to follow, but then paused and turned around to address the initiates again.

“One last thing. Each fortnight you will get an allowance of 100 points, which in Dauntless currency is about a quarter of the minimum fortnightly wage. These points are for toiletries, clothing, equipment, and any other stuff you might want like tattoos or piercings.” Eric paused. “Shops can be found in the pit. Once your points are gone, you will under no circumstances receive any more until the next pay fortnight so spend them well.”

With that, he too left the room.

Valkyrie searched the bunks for one with her size in clothing and quickly got changed, not hesitating to strip in front of the others. A wolf whistle sounded from the other side of the room.

“Nice body chicka!” Valkyrie instantly pinpointed the voice as belonging to the male transfer from Amity. She ignored him.

“Ya know, it probably gets a bit cold in here at night, and a warm blooded Amity like me isn't use to that. Maybe you could help me with that?” He continued. She kept ignoring him.

His female companion sniggered at the thought.

“C'mon, surely a little snuggling wouldn't go amiss?” He pushed a little further.

Valkyrie finally gave up and turned around to look at him.

“What's your name?” She bit out.

“Whoa, bold today huh baby?” He laughed. “Name's Marco, and this is my friend Clove.” He nodded to the female Amity transfer. “She says you're full of bravado, and that you ain't gonna last past stage one.” The girl smiled wickedly at Valkyrie.

“Really?” Valkyrie asked. “I'll be sure to remind you of that when I wipe the floor with you in training.” She smiled sweetly and walked towards the door. The girl, Clove, sent her a death glare, but made no move to follow her, muttering to Marco instead.

The two female Candor initiates came up to her, one with dark skin, and straight, black-brown hair. The other had pale skin and curly, ginger locks.

“That was...... Awesome! You really shut them down!” the one with the darker skin speaking.

“Okay..” Valkyrie replied.

“Oh, sorry, where are our manners? My name is Zoe, and this is..” The darker skinned girl started.

“Lyss” Valkyrie interrupted. “I remember, the whole number's for names drama earlier.” She added.

Lyss had the decency to blush.

"The other female Candor transfer is Ash. She's the one with the brown curly hair over there..." Valkyrie looked over two beds and the girl looked up, smiling as she gathered her old Candor clothes for burning. " And the boy is Justin. You won't hear much from him. He's quiet and keeps to himself." Zoe was about to continue when Eric's voice cut through the room.

“Enough gossiping ladies, time for dinner. Follow me.” He addressed the room at large, but somehow managed to make Valkyrie feel as if his comments were directed specifically at her. He then turned and walked out of the room, Valkyrie and her fellow initiates scurrying to keep up with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review!


	7. Dinner Mischief

URIAH POV

The wig was starting to itch a bit.

Uriah Petrad sent his older brother Zeke another glare as he paused in his duties to push the pink faux curls out of his eyes once again.

If Zeke had of deleted the footage on the security cameras, they wouldn't be in this mess. They wouldn't be wandering round the mess hall in pink dresses with frilly lace aprons and curly pink faux hair wigs, serving dinner as the population of dauntless watched on, sniggering and taunting them, asking them to pose for a picture or two.

Worst of all, Max and the other dauntless leaders were looking on, sitting smugly at their table.

Zeke had one job.

One. Job.

However, his brother thought it would be funnier if they got caught for some unknown reason. Not that they wouldn't have eventually anyway, they took the fall for any trouble in Dauntless anyway, but hell, Zeke made it easy for them.

Or maybe....

No.

Four wouldn't....

Would he?

Uriah stored that thought away for investigation at another time. Now was not the time to get lost in the blame game. It was time for another lot of classic Dauntless entertainment, anonymously created of course.

Uriah slipped along the lines of tables, serving food occasionally, but mostly focused on looking for the next unsuspecting victim of the Petrad pranks crew. He was looking for someone who needed a bit of spice in life. Someone who needed a joke to stop them from being taken so seriously. Someone who...

He narrowly avoided walking straight into Eric as the bulky mass of Dauntless Leader stopped suddenly in his tracks, and sat down next to a scowling blonde dressed in initiation training gear. She appeared to lighten up a little when Eric started talking to her, even smiling a little.

This girl was in severe danger.

She was an initiate.

She had no idea how nasty Eric could be.

How he used girls like her, hurt them, broke them, no, destroyed them, and threw them away. This girl needed his help.

And as a loyal member of Dauntless he would do everything in his power to provide her with exactly the help she needed.

So as she was talking animatedly to Eric, he snuck down the isle, acting every bit the perfect serving person, even giving Four a second helping of Dauntless cake to keep him occupied.

When the girl and Eric seemed to be deeply involved in their conversation, Uriah looked over to Zeke and waggled his eyebrows, the agreed upon code for 'I've found the victim'.

Zeke discretely gave him the thumbs down when he realised Uriah meant the girl Eric was engrossed in, shaking his head. Pissing off Eric right now was not a good idea. Uriah, however, though otherwise. This would be fun!

_Finally revenge on Eric for his behaviour during initiation._

He then proceeded to slip a fake snake onto the girls dinner tray, just behind the bowl of custard pudding, slightly out of sight, but obvious enough to the victim.

The snake was one of their better prank props. It was red and black, posed to look lie it was about to strike. He then proceeded to sneak back down the line, taking great pleasure in the look of almost panic on Zeke's face as the blonde girl started to turn back to her tray.


	8. Keeping Cool

NATE/ZENITH POV

Zenith focused solely on sitting still. He had unwittingly chosen the perfect place to sit that night.

He couldn't draw too much attention. When he had sat down earlier, he had no clue how well placed he was.

He had spotted Valkyrie and thought maybe it would be a good idea to try and befriend her. She could be an interesting conquest. It was either her or the Candor girl, Zoe, but like Four, he was not to fond of Candors.

_They talk too much and are always far too blunt._

Valkyrie had been sitting alone, with a persistent scowl on her face. Not the best way to find a chick, especially when one wanted to get laid, but Zenith thought why not give it a try. It wasn't like he had anything to lose. However, the moment he had sat down opposite her and was about to open his mouth and unleash a cheesy pick-up line, Eric came stalking down the isle between the tables.

He looked like he was lost in thought and Zenith thought he was going to walk straight past, but then stopped suddenly and sat down next to Valkyrie. The moment she saw him, her scowl disappeared and Zenith knew he didn't stand a chance.

They talked mostly about weapons, and who had the right to own them within Dauntless. Eric and Valkyrie were oddly focused on each other during the conversation. The odd occasional joke by Eric made Valkyrie smile or chuckle.

Zenith was highly confused by the interaction he was witnessing.

_Since when was Eric acting like a normal human being?_

It was almost like he was a different person.

Zenith was pulled out of thought by someone dressed in pink moving behind Valkyrie and Eric. He looked up to see the smiling face of Uriah Petrad as he slipped something black, red, and wiggly looking onto Valkyrie's dinner tray. A rubber snake. He nearly jumped at the sight of it. He would have given a yelp if he hadn't of known it wasn't real, which wouldn't have been a good idea, as Eric and Valkyrie would be alerted and the prank would be ruined.

_This was it._

His first up close experience with how the Petrad prank crew worked.

Now he just had to avoid blowing their cover as he watched the prank go down.

As Uriah turned to walk away, Valkyrie made to turn around, only to be pulled back into her conversation with Eric. Zenith mentally sighed. This could take a while.

However a few seconds later he was proven wrong when she turned back again to take a bite of her pudding and she saw the snake. Zenith braced himself for her to scream and flip her tray. Right at him, where he was sat across from her.

_Maybe this wasn't such a good place to sit after all._

However, the scream never came. Instead Valkyrie quickly leapt backwards and jumped up, kicking down onto the lip of her tray as it hung over the edge of the table, catapulting the contents up into the air in a glorious arch. Zenith and Eric watched, eyes wide and jaws agape, as the bowl of custard pudding and the snake sailed through the air...

…..before landing with a satisfying squelching noise right on his father's face.

Valkyrie and Eric slapped their hands over their open mouths, looking at where a custard covered Max stood on the upper level of the Dining Room, beside the leader's table, with looks of abject horror.

Zenith could tell Valkyrie was on the verge of panic as she looked to Eric for guidance, fear in her eyes from the moment she had realised what had happened. Beside them, Zenith tried frantically to remember how to breathe without laughing and giving away that he knew the prank was going to happen.

And failed miserably, as he couldn't help but completely crack up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos welcome! No comments yet, you guys aren't giving me much to work with here, so I hope I'm doing ok.
> 
> ~Valkyrie~


	9. Dinner Disturbance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry It's been a while. My university exams have just finished and Zenith hasn't been well enough to continue without me. Posting 2 chapters to make it up to y'all.
> 
> ~Valkyrie~

Max POV

Max certainly never even saw it coming.

He had been looking down into the Dining Room, watching how the new initiates were interacting with the members of his faction, reminiscing about how nice it was to see a bit of a turn around in the faction since last year.

Things had changed around Dauntless in the last year. There were no longer any rules about initiates and full members interacting, other than the obvious ones abut them and their trainers being 'involved'.

Max had decided in a rare moment of kindness, that he was going to let Four off the hook for that one. Eric had not been impressed, but Max knew what it was like to fall in love. As long as he didn't mistreat Tris or overly flaunt the fact that he had gotten away with breaking the rules, Max didn't care to punish him.

Initiation was not as harsh as it had been the year before, with Tris and Christina joining Four as instructors and out-voting Eric's crueller ideas. Max would have pitied the ambitious young man, being out-gunned by two ex-Stiffs and an ex-Candor had to sting a little, but he thought it would be good for Eric's humility or lack thereof, for him to undercut by the two Dauntless prodigies and their friend.

Speaking of their friend, Christina had come to him earlier that evening, and told him that she was worried her being an initiate instructor would cause some issues this year. Apparently, her little sister, Zoe, had transferred in from Candor this year and Christina was worried about how it would look if she succeeded in getting into Dauntless. She even went as far as to offer her resignation until Max explained that as she would be teaching Dauntless-Borns, it would mean minimal contact, and therefore would not cause any issues as she was not responsible for ranking her sister. She had gladly withdrawn her offer for resignation of her post.

Initiates were given more of a chance to prove themselves and were kept strictly on suicide watch. If anyone thought an initiate had committed any crimes such as starting fights outside of training hours, or heaven forbid, attempted murder, the initiates involved were to be brought before Max immediately and dealt with on the spot.

None had been dragged before him yet, but Max knew it was only a matter of time before someone tried something. The cuts, after all, were still in place. Initiates were still under a lot of pressure to perform. Dauntless, after all, could not afford to take anything less than the best. They as a faction were responsible for safeguarding the lives of everyone in the city, and if a single Dauntless soldier turned out to be a coward and failed when it really mattered, there would be hell to pay.

It was only a matter of time. But for now, Max would enjoy the temporary peace and harmony in his faction.

And he did. At least until he was hit in the face with a bowl of flying custard mid thought.

A stunned silence filled the dining room. The bowl fell off his face and onto the floor with a metallic clanging noise and custard slid down his nose, landing on his shirt and leather jacket.

His favourite leather jacket.

He slowly wiped the custard out of his eyes, blew it out of his nose, and spit it out of his mouth. Sure, it tasted OK, but he wasn't really a custard guy. He looked down into the now totally silent Dining Room and gave a sweeping death glare. Nobody was laughing. Most people looked terrified, wondering what was going to happen next.

His gaze shifted to the now very scared looking female initiate whose pudding he was wearing. She looked absolutely terrified, almost shit-your-pants kind of terrified, but not quite. She wasn't cowering or trying to run however. She stood firm and awaited her punishment with honour, sparing only a moment to look to Eric for guidance. Eric cast his eyes downwards after giving her a small smile, and made his way over to Max.

“She didn't do it deliberately” Was all he said before Max cut him off.

“I know. Just give me a second and I'll figure out who did.”

“Okay..” Eric answered, uncertain.

Max scanned the crowd once again as Eric returned to his seat next to the now terrified female initiate who was looking at Eric in a confused manner.

He watched as the dining room returned to a low mumble of noise, and was about to take a seat and ponder the most recent disturbance in his faction when something on the ground caught his eye. Next to where he had been standing lay a black and red rubber snake. He would have jumped had he not realised it was a fake. His eyes returned to the Dining Room below. It took him a while, but eventually he noticed across the table from the female initiate, his own son was desperately trying to keep a straight face, and failing spectacularly, cracking up laughing and glancing quickly at the nearest Petrad, who just happened to be the younger one, Uriah.

That was all he needed to be certain who the real perpetrators were.

“PETRADS!!!!!!!” he bellowed.

Zeke and Uriah made a run for it but Uriah was quickly caught by Eric and Zeke nearly made it out the door before being caught by Harrison who was just coming in.

“There will be hell to pay for this. You ruined my favourite jacket!” He hollered and the boys flinched. “Take them to my office, I'll deal with them later.”

“Hey dad, don't you mean your only jacket?” Zenith said loudly, and Eric raised an eyebrow, looking to Max for instructions.

“Him too please Eric.” Max said, hand waving in dismissal as he returned his focus to attempting to get some of the yellow gunk off his person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's the first!
> 
> Any feedback is always welcome!
> 
> ~Valkyrie & Zenith~


	10. War for War

Valkyrie POV

She was very relieved to walk out of dinner unscathed and still within a faction. She had only been a part of Dauntless faction for six hours, give or take a few minutes, and already someone was out to get her.

Petrad.

That was their last name. Petrad.

From what Eric told her after the incident at dinner, they were Dauntless's resident pranksters, conducting harmless but disruptive pranks left, right, and center every opportunity they got. They had been serving punishment for an earlier prank when they pulled tonight's one. Harmless prank or not, it had endangered her in ways that others could not even begin to guess.

She had come that close to becoming factionless that she didn't want to think about it. She had come that close to being vulnerable to her mother again. That close to having her new found freedom taken from her. That close to...

She ordered herself to stop thinking about it. Her mind was still in panic mode. She needed to stop walking aimlessly, as she had been since leaving the dining room, and start finding something to do. Distraction was key. Otherwise she would go into a full on panic attack, and those were never good.

She had somehow made her way back to the dormitory unscathed and made her way over to her bunk. It was very barren. Her draws were empty, and all she had were the necessities provided by Dauntless for training. Everyone else's bunks were in exactly the same condition, but Valkyrie couldn't help feel the need to personalise.

How many points had Eric said they were given each fortnight? 100? More than enough, she hoped, for an extra blanket, another set of clothes, work boots, and maybe a tattoo and some make-up? Possibly even a fluffier pillow. The one on her bed was looking a little sad. With this list in mind, she set off with a purpose in what she hoped was the direction of the pit.

On her way there, her mind strayed back to the Petrads. According to Eric, they were the best pranksters in Dauntless. Nobody else could ever hope to compare, this was why nobody else would compete. Maybe this needed to change. Maybe it was time for a new player in the game of pranking. With her Erudite background and history of getting into trouble, she could give them a run for their money.

And revenge for the incident at dinner would taste ever so sweet. Maybe as sweet as the custard they robbed her of.

Walking over the bridge near the chasm, Valkyrie spotted the shops rimming the edge of the pit and quickly set to work. The first shop she entered was the clothing store, and behind the counter she was surprised to find Christina, initiate instructor for the Dauntless Borns.

“Come to spend your points already?” Christina asked.

“Yeah. What are you doing here?” Valkyrie asked “Not to seem rude, but aren't you an initiate instructor?”

“Yeah, but that's only a part time job. Most of the year I work here. I wasn't supposed to during initiation, but a co-worker was sick tonight, so I'm covering her.” was the older girl's reply. “Anyway, is there anything I can help you with?” she asked.

“Yeah I'm looking for a new set of clothes. The requirements I've set are made of leather, preferably tight fitting, and to look completely badass.” Valkyrie replied.

“I have just the thing!” Christina gushed, grabbing her hand and dragging her towards the back room of the store. She rummaged through a few boxes before coming up with a pair of leather pants, a leather jacket, and a criss-crossed black cotton halter top.

“Will this work?” Christina asked.

“Perfect.” Valkyrie replied.

“You should totally pair it with these” She held up a pair of knee high suede boots.

“Nah, I was thinking maybe these” Valkyrie grabbed a pair of knee high lace-up leather combat boots.

“Practical.” Christina noted. “Maybe another day I will convince you to get something less....formal, more..... flirty. Maybe a whole outfit?”

“Sure, I'll let you know when I have the spare points.” Valkyrie said with a smile. She didn't know how to do flirty. Her mother had never allowed her to try. Surely help couldn't harm.

“Sweet.” Christina replied. “Now, were you wanting any make-up at all? We have that here too.”

“If I could get some black eye-liner and dark grey or black eye-shadow, that would be great.” Valkyrie replied.

“Right over here.” Christina replied, grabbing a few tubes and taking them to the counter.

“Usually this lot would cost you 25 points, but as most of this stuff is last seasons stock, I'll give you a discount. That comes to 15 points.” She said with a smile.

“Thanks” Valkyrie replied and paid her. “I'll be sure to visit again next fortnight.”

“Let me know and I'll come with. Until then, see you at meal times.” Christina waved her off.

“See you” Valkyrie called as she walked out the door.

The next place Valkyrie saw was the home wares store. She went in and quickly found a decent blanket, some toiletries, and a super fluffy pillow. Apparently these items were hard to source normally, so she ended up paying 35 points for them. She winced at the price but accepted it anyway. These were necessities. If it had to, her tattoo could wait for another day.

She went into the tattoo salon desperately hoping she had enough. She didn't even bother to look at the pre-drawn tattoo templates available, and instead headed for the nearest available tattoo artist.

She ended up with a lady by the name of Tori, discussing what she wanted to get. When she heard it was going to cost her 60 points, her heart dropped.

“I don't think I have enough points” She said sadly.

“We can double check if you want” Tori offered kindly, holding out a hand for her Dauntless ID card. Valkyrie handed it over. Reality was she knew it wasn't going to be enough. She only had 50 points left on her card due to her earlier shopping.

Tori tapped away quickly on her computer.

“You do have enough, you have......” Tori seemed distracted for a second “plenty of points for this tattoo. Come on, lets get you inked up.” And with that she processed the payment and led her back to one of the many chairs, gesturing for her to take a seat.

Valkyrie was confused, but didn't protest. She must have misheard the sales clerk at the last store. He must have said 25 points, not 35 points as she had thought. That had to be it.

She slipped off her shirt and undid her bra, taking up position in the chair so that Tori could get to work, the buzz of the needle and the tapping of it against her skin lulling her into a relaxed state.

By the time she left the store, calm, content, and fully relaxed two hours later, she had a large, sprawling, full black tattoo of symbolic Valkyrie wings crawling up her spine and flaring over her shoulders, with a smaller, slightly different one on the back of her neck above her shirt collar

That night, after taking a lengthy shower, she went to bed early, happy for the first time in a long time, plotting quietly, her dreams filled with the idea of out-competing the Petrad boys.

Revenge tasted sweeter already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there's the second!
> 
> Hope you liked them :)
> 
> ~Valkyrie & Zenith~


	11. Annoying Artists

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait. Will be posting several chapters today to make up for it.

He didn't know what the hell had gotten into him. He had been simply having a drink at his favourite bar when movement over by the chasm caught his attention. Turning, he realised pretty quickly that it was Amirina, or 'Valkyrie' as she now was to be called.

An interesting name choice, he had mused to himself. Historically, many hundreds of years before the war wiped out the rest of humanity, Norse culture had a mythological creature called a 'Valkyrie'. Many of them in fact. They were the Norse equivalent of the Christian 'Angel'. She could be an angel, but, being so reckless, beautiful, charming, and brave, she was more of a seductress in Eric's mind.

Had he really just admitted he thought her beautiful?

Pushing that uncomfortable thought away, Eric had continued to muse as he watched her enter one of the clothing stores.

After the fiasco at dinner he had been unsure if she would venture outside the initiate dorms on the same night, but ever the brave one, there she was, strolling around the pit as if she owned the place. Normally that sort of cavalier attitude from an initiate would irritate him, but for some reason tonight it hadn't. He had instead, for some strange reason, felt compelled to spend the last two hours following Valkyrie around the pit, watching her shop.

And to make it worse, he had found it oddly fascinating.

He had followed her, from the clothing store, where Christina gave him a weird look, to the home-ware store where he watched her pick out a big fluffy pillow, to the dauntless tattoo parlour.

He only realised what he was doing when she left the tattoo parlour after two hours, a tattoo on her neck covered in bandages, and more bandages binding her chest and back, indicating another piece she had acquired.

Tori then walked over to him.

“So what's with me not being allowed to tell that initiate her points balance?” She questioned, holding his eyes in a steady gaze. “And don't tell me it's nothing Eric, it's not like every time an initiate gets a tattoo you are standing in the background frantically motioning with your hands for me not to tell them how much they have to spend.” She continued probing for information.

“She's not supposed to have a points balance of 100. I many or may not have been reimbursing her after every purchase she has made tonight.” He replied. “Speaking of which, please reverse the charges on her account and put them on mine.”

“Okay. On one condition.” Tori replied, and Eric sighed.

“What?” He snipped

“Tell me why you are doing this.” Tori replied, arching an eyebrow.

“I can't” Eric replied.

“Why not?” Tori asked

“Because I don't know why.” He added in a sort of defeated voice.

Tori laughed, and tapped away on the till, reversing the charges on Valkyrie's account and adding them to Eric's.

“You know” She said as she was handing him his card back “You are acting like a love-sick puppy, just like Four was last year when he first met Tris.”

“Don't compare me to Four. Ever.” Eric said, voice and eyes turning cold.

“Whatever. Just telling you so I can say I told you so later” Tori replied and dismissed him with a wave of a hand.

Eric, getting more pissed by the second, turned and stormed out of the tattoo parlour, Tori's laughter echoing in his ears.

He was not Four. He was better than Four. He should have been first in initiation and first choice for leadership. Not Four. He was smarter, stronger, more dauntless. The fact that he had 18 fears in his landscape just proved it.

He had overcome them all, and in a good time too. His time had only been longer because he had more to face. Four, however, had locked up in his landscape. It had taken him ages to beat his fourth fear, while Eric had cruised through every nightmare just seconds after it presented itself to him.

He was definitely better than Four. How dare Tori compare them!

And as to the idea of him being in love with Valkyrie? It was preposterous!

He didn't even know her yet. How could he be in love with her?

His mind, ever the traitorous Erudite, had strayed down another path. He could now almost picture Valkyrie sprawled amongst his black satin sheets, leadership tattoos up her neck and spanning the tops of her shoulders, and arm tattoos just like his along her forearms. The icing on the cake that was the image his mind conjured, however, was the fact that the only covering she had was his sheets.

Shaking his head violently to rid himself of the mental image, Eric picked up his pace and made his way to his apartment. There was no avoiding it now. He definitely needed a shower tonight.

And a cold one at that.

As he strode into his apartment, a familiar query popped back into his mind.

What the hell was she doing to him?

His mind was still racing when he finally fell asleep, sometime around 2am in the morning.


	12. Borrowing

Zenith felt like an absolute ninja.

His initiation hadn't even started yet and he was well on his way to becoming a member of the Petrad's prank crew. To get in, all he had to do was pull off a couple of choice pranks during initiation. It didn't matter if he got caught or not, as long as they drew enough attention for Zeke and Uriah to find out about them.

Just minutes ago he had acquired the tools for his first solo prank and was now smuggling them to his drop-site for safe keeping until the time came for him to rig everything up at 3am the next morning. He would have to go short on sleep but it would be so worth it. Everything had been going well so far.

He had been sneaking along the halls with a level of stealth that Uriah himself would have been proud of, in his arms a 'borrowed' paint-ball gun from the armoury, when a somewhat ethereal voice drifted out of the darkness, into his ears.

“I’m bullet-proof, nothing to lose. Fire away, fire away.” 

The singing paused.

“Ricochet, you take your aim. Fire away, fire away.”

Curiosity piqued, he followed the sound, trying to pinpoint it's source. As the voice got louder, he could make out the sound of running water, and smell some sort of flowery scent, maybe a shampoo. He then switched to following his nose, as it was easier than following the sound as it bounced and echoed around the caverns.

“You shoot me down, but I won’t fall, I am titanium.”

Another pause.

“Shoot me down, but I won’t fall. I am titaniiiiiiuuuuummm.”

The voice quietened and lowered in pitch.

“I am titanium.”

Zenith was walking past the transfer dorm door when he spotted an odd sight. One of the initiates’ beds was set up with an extra blanket and a big, fluffy pillow. He looked around the room cautiously, trying to tell if anyone else was home, nearly jumping out of his skin when he heard the taps turn off in the bathroom and the singing stop.

He quickly ducked behind a support beam just in time to watch Valkyrie walk out of the bathroom in a warm-looking dressing gown, and over to the bed with the fluffy pillow, drying her hair with a towel as she went.

Zenith was about to turn away and sneak out of the room when she let out a sigh, and moved to fetch her hair brush, blocking his escape route. She quickly brushed her hair, counting the strokes of the brush until she reached a hundred and then took off her dressing gown.

Dressed in what appeared to be a pair of black, silky boxer shorts and a black sports bra, she slipped into the bed, pulling the blankets up to her chin and dozing off within seconds, a quaint smile on her face.

Zenith ripped his eyes away from the sight, and tried to once again focus on his mission as he stealthily crept out of the room and continued on his way. However, his mind strayed back to Valkyrie within a couple of seconds.

He almost felt sorry for her, being the target of a Petrad prank was not fun, especially if it was only your first day in Dauntless. She had been completely innocent, not expecting anything like that to happen. And with Eric taking to her, she had seemed almost calm.

Her reaction to the prank had been priceless though, and the fact that she had actually managed to hit his dad, accidental or not, was impressive. He had just expected her to scream and jump back like just about any other girl in Dauntless would've, but the way she had leapt up and kicked the tray's contents into the air was amazing.

But something wasn't right about it.

It was very......coordinated.

It was almost like she'd had some kind of training to react like that.

Zenith quickly brushed that thought out of his mind. She probably read every book in the Erudite and city libraries for fun. Surely there would have been one or two on military tactics in those collections. She probably got it form there.

She probably got a lot of things from there, coming to think about it. Zenith stopped dead in his tracks at that thought. Maybe she would make a good prankster? Or would she be too out in the open for that?

He decided would have to ask Uriah and Zeke about it after initiation. He couldn't risk being seen with them until then, otherwise his dad would get suspicious.

And that couldn't happen. When Max thought he was up to something, he usually had him followed just to make sure that nothing would happen. Some weird kind of over protectiveness he had going on. It was, in some ways understandable, after all, he didn't exactly have a mother to care for him. Well he did and he didn't at the same time, but that was another story.

The point was, he had to remain out of sight for his pranks to work.


	13. A Head Start

The caverns of Dauntless were silent, not even the echo of of her footsteps reaching her ears as Valkyrie tip-toed towards the training room, stealthily grabbing a muffin from the kitchens on the way. It was 2.45am and nobody was stirring yet, the other initiates had not even twitched as she crept out of the dorm, even when she stubbed her toe on a bed post and ended up hopping around the room, muttering curses to herself.

She easily avoided the night shift as she slipped from shadow to shadow. She was nearly caught by Four when she rounded a corner too quickly, but was saved when Six tugged on Four's arm and made some remark about him being crazy to even think about waking up the initiates without having his morning coffee first. Thankfully he followed her without too much fuss and Valkyrie was able to continue on her way.

It was 3am when she finally made it to the training room. She slipped her hand into her jacket pocket and pulled out her MP3 player, the only thing other than her swords that she had smuggled out of Erudite when she left. Taking her jacket off and pushing the buds into her ears, she cranked up the volume to 100% and flicked the track to her favourite dubstep mix, keeping it on pause for now.

She then walked over to the punching bags, stretching out her limbs in the process. Bending down and touching her toes, she then dropped into a crouch and hit play on her MP3.

As the beat surged in her ears she leapt up, twirling to kick the punching bag high on the right side, hitting hard. She followed with a left-handed uppercut and leapt again to drive her elbow into the top of the bag, close to the chain hanging it from the roof. The bag swung erratically as she dropped into a crouching pose and lunged in a tackling motion before punching it several times in rapid succession and throwing a roundhouse kick at it.

She paused to stretch her muscles out again, walking a couple of paces and swinging her arms behind her in an attempt to loosen her muscles. She was feeling tense, had been ever since waking up that morning. Today was the first day of training. She was hoping against hope that the effort she put in behind her mother's back would pay off.

If it didn't, if she hadn't done enough, if...

Well, in essence, she would be completely screwed.

She shook her head, clearing it of thoughts, before turning back to the punching bags. Suddenly an image of her mother flashed in her vision, and Valkyrie felt her rage rise.

She hated running. She hadn't exactly hated life in Erudite, at least she wouldn't have if her mother hadn't made it completely unbearable. The pursuit of knowledge was just as much of a thrill to her as jumping off the roof had been. But Jeanine had ruined it. Her anger rose again.

Letting out an angry growl, she threw a hard left hook at the punching bag, sending it swinging high before crashing back towards her. As it approached she leapt into a flying kick, twisting in mid air to double tap it. With a loud crack the chain holding the punching bag strained against the attachment, almost to the point of breaking. Flipping backwards, Valkyrie avoided the violent back swing that followed, dancing out of the way before striking again, all the while imagining her mother's face superimposed on the bag itself.

She didn't stop until she was drenched in sweat, knuckles sore, but not overly red due to the tolerance she had built up while training in secret. She was panting and her limbs were burning from exertion, but she was feeling much less stressed than before.

Glancing at her watch, she noticed it was 5.30am already and hurriedly grabbed her jacket and made her way back to the dorms. She quickly grabbed a change of clothes and a towel, diving into the bathroom for a shower as she heard her fellow initiates beginning to stir. She washed quickly, and emerged after half an hour, just as Four started banging some kind of metal pipe on the railing near the door.

“EVERYBODY UP!” Eric hollered as he strode into the room, most of the initiates leaping out of bed in fear. “Time is a-wasting! Lets move it, pansies.”

“You have to be in the training room by 7am at the latest. You do not want to be late. Trust me.” Four added, and they both turned to leave the room.

Valkyrie threw her pair of combat boots and followed quickly as they headed straight for the dining room. As they arrived, she noticed Four head straight for the coffee machine, while Eric headed for the table on the other side of the room that had supplies for making tea. Valkyrie watched, intrigued, as they went about their routines. Curiosity eventually got the better of her and she walked over to the tea table, wordlessly setting herself up to make a cup of tea. The selection there was terrible. No herbal teas like back in Erudite and all the other teas present were clearly cheap, low quality. Sighing, she brewed herself some of the most decent looking earl grey present, silently praying that it would taste a little bit better than the dirt she was expecting.

Noticing her for the first time, Eric appeared to double-take as he watched her quietly stir her tea, adding a small dash of milk and two sugars before looking up and making eye contact with him, a small smile twitching at the corner of her mouth as she turned and walked to a table a few meters away, sitting down gracefully as she gently blew on her tea.


	14. Curiosity kills the Dauntless Leader

Hiding in the shadows, he watched without her even knowing he was there. What exactly made Eric get out of bed and go down to the training room after only two hours of sleep the night before the first day of initiation, he couldn’t say. Yet here he was. And he just couldn’t look away. 

He was completely entranced. His eyes never left her form as she jumped, kicked, punched, and tackled the bag before her, lean muscles clearly standing out in her calves and thighs. Her lithe arms and toned stomach flexing as she gave a rage filled scream and attacked the bag even more intensively than before. Sweat dripping off her forehead and running down her neck and between her…

He shook his head. His mind was running down a dangerous path. It was far too early in the morning for another cold shower.

His eyes somehow had made their way back to her while he was thinking. She appeared to know what she was doing, and that was rare for an initiate from Erudite. Even he himself had only a theoretical knowledge of hand to hand combat upon joining Dauntless three years ago. 

He admired her stance, how she stood straight, held her core tight, extended her arms to their full length, and followed through her punches. How she fought with passion in every kick, rage in every punch, and raw determination in every tackle. She had been at it for at least 45 minutes straight when she finally stopped for a breather.

He was still watching when she looked down at her watch and cussed quietly to herself, before grabbing her jacket and hurrying off in the direction of the initiate dorms.

He followed her. He just really couldn’t help it. His feet moved automatically, keeping him just out of sight. He got to the dorms just in time to see Valkyrie grabbing her clothes and dashing for the showers, just as the initiate nearest the dorm door started to stir from his slumber. She took just long enough for the bleary-eyed initiate to see her and assume she had just gotten out of bed.

Smart, Eric thought to himself. By letting the other initiate see her she had created an alibi for herself. Even if she was seen sneaking around this morning, at least one of the initiates would vouch for her. He smiled, turning to go find Four. It was about time the initiates woke up.

She was just walking out of the showers as Four woke the other initiates. He told them to be in the training room by no later than 7am. Some of them wouldn’t be, after all they were out very late last night, and surely by now must’ve be regretting it. Some people just don’t know how to live without guidance from their parents. At least Valkyrie hadn’t made that mistake. He turned and headed towards the cafeteria, Four walking sleepily beside him.

However, Eric couldn’t help but worry. She could be too smart. Too Erudite. He nearly froze mid thought on the way to the cafeteria. 

What if Valkyrie is Divergent?

He pondered this as he made his cup of morning tea, jumping slightly as she appeared out of nowhere beside him. She gave him a small smile and went to sit down at the nearest table. Divergent or not, Eric was intrigued.

And yet again he wondered why she is in his head all the time.


	15. How NOT to Disarm a Paintball Gun

No matter how hard he tried, Max Thompson, Head Leader of Dauntless Faction could not sleep in. Every morning at precisely 5am he woke up, eyes bright and a to-do list a mile long, ready to start the day.

It was a habit he had trained himself into as an initiate, getting up earlier than his fellow initiates to go train in the early hours. A habit that saw him rise to up the ranks in stage one, keep his cool in stage two, and ultimately lead to his final ranking of first place at the end of stage three. A habit that also saw him become one of the best Dauntless leaders in known history. A habit that he couldn’t break.

Hence, by 5.30am on the first day of initiation training, Max was up and about, puttering around his apartment, making breakfast, drinking coffee, and doing domestic things. Not the usual side people saw of him, but none the less part of his normal routine.

Because today was the first day of full training for the newest batch of initiates, all of the leadership and training team at Dauntless had an early meeting. This was to finalize the training schedule, and, of course, make a few bets on which initiates would get all the way through, more specifically who would get first place (not that anyone else in the compound ever got to know about that part).

Every year, there was a predictable pattern to who the leaders bet on. Eric always went for the most muscular initiates, focusing mainly on brute strength. Harrison always went for the Erudite transfers. Tori was new and had never bet before. Four just plain old refused to bet. Max thought about the new trainers, what choices they would make. He thought Uriah will bet on a Dauntless-born, Christina on a Candor, and Tris on nobody.

He himself liked to shake it up, which tended to work in his favour. Three years ago, his bets had been on Four and Eric. They placed first and second respectively. Two years ago he made a poor bet on an Erudite boy who fell through in stage two. Last year he had bet on only one initiate.

Tris. One look at her and he had known that she was her mother’s daughter. He saw the same spirit in her that he had seen in his childhood best friend.

The other leaders had laughed at him. Eric in particular had found his bet most amusing.

Until he had to pay up.

This year, however, Max was unsure about who to bet on. He pondered his options as he grabbed his coat and began the walk to the room in which the meeting would be held.

The first jumper, an Erudite girl, was cocky. Maybe too cocky. Besides, Eric had taken a liking to her. He would be surprised if he didn’t lay down some money on her. The Amity boy looked strong from years of working in the fields. The Candor boy wasn’t going to get through, Max was sure of it, but the three Candor girls could make it, provided they kept their mouths closed long enough. The Erudite boys seemed fairly lanky but could bulk up in training. And then there was his son, Zenith. Could he be a second gen first placer?

A loud, shockingly girly shriek pulled him out of his thoughts as he approached the end of the leader’s corridor. After a few seconds of looking for the source, the reason for such a performance came to his attention.

Up ahead, one of his fellow leaders, Harrison, was holding his shoulder and cursing valiantly as he tried to disarm the paintball gun that was somehow rigged up to shoot him as he opened his door. Seeing where this was going, Max tried to call out a warning, but was too late.

Thwap!

Another, much higher pitched scream erupted from Harrison as he fell to the ground, face contorted in agony as he clutched his balls.

Max tried not to laugh at his misfortune. He didn’t particularly like Harrison, but nobody deserved such punishment so early in the morning.

With a sigh, Max bent down and dismantled the rig holding the gun. He mentally added finding the culprit(s) and punishing them to his to-do list for the day. Not that that would be a hard task. There was a 66% chance the last name was Petrad, a 33% chance it was Thompson, and only a 1% chance of it being someone else.

Taking the gun with him, he set out for the meeting, pausing only a moment to turn and tell Harrison to hurry up.

“Walk it off. Are you Dauntless or not?” He chuckled.

The feeble moan from the man behind him told him all he needed to know.

_Two pranks in less than 24 hours since the new recruits arrived._ He thought. _This is going to be an entertaining initiation._

One could say there was a slight skip in his step as he continued on his way.


	16. Crime and Punishment

FOUR POV

Initiation was off to a slow start this year. Due to the small number of initiates, it had been decided that they should all train together for once, with no splitting of the group into dauntless-born and transfers. They would train together but sleep in separate dorms as usual. However, so far very little training had occurred, as sleeping seemed to be taking up too much time.

Four glanced at his watch, noting the time. The three Dauntless-born in initiates that had yet to show up were now officially late by five minutes and the transfers, though all physically present, were most definitely mentally still asleep.

Most of them anyway. Four hadn’t failed to notice how alert the first jumper was earlier that morning. She had been fast on his heels as he made his way to breakfast and fast to follow Tris, Eric, and himself to the training room, regardless of how early they had left. Even now as they were waiting for the final initiates to arrive she was casually leaning against one of the many battered concrete support beams in the room.

Out of the present Dauntless-born, Zenith appeared to be the only one awake enough to pay any attention to his surroundings. He had his usual cheeky grin splayed across his face, however, it appeared he had not got much sleep that night as there were very noticeable dark bags under each of his eyes.

At seven minutes past the allotted meeting time, the last three Dauntless-born intiates sauntered in, only to be met by an angry glare from Tris and to be told to run twenty laps of the training room by Four himself. As he ran behind them, making them keep a fast pace, he heard Eric walk in.

“Why do we have to be up so early?” Four heard the obnoxious Amity transfer, Clove was her name if Four’s memory served correctly, questioned Tris. “Can’t training wait an hour or two?”

He was about to go over and deal with the idiot when as quick as he could blink, Tris had pulled her knife from her boot and had it to the initiates throat.

“This is a real knife initiate” Tris yelled in the girls face. “Wake up. You’re not in Amity any more. Here we don’t mess around. Here we follow orders. If you are told to train at 7am, you train at 7am or you become factionless, and if the look on your face is anything to go by, you really do need this training.

Eric smirked and looked around the startled group. “It seems you aren’t the only initiate who is still half asleep. All of you, go run forty laps around the training room, NOW!” He bellowed. “And Cam, Dori and Ricky, you still have to finish your twenty for Four before you do the forty you owe me!” He added, a cruel smirk gracing his face.

As soon as they had finished the laps, they began the day’s briefing.

“Now that you are all here, let’s go over the training plan for today” Tris began.

“Before we get started though, there is one thing that needs addressing. Dori, Ricky, and Cam, You will all be helping in the kitchens as punishment for being late today.” Eric began, glaring hard at the now panting Dauntless-born trio. 

“For how long?” Dori groaned, not liking the idea of an earlier start at all.

“Well you were late by seven minutes, so you will be on kitchen duty for seven days. You will have to report to the head of the kitchens at 4.30am.” Eric began again, still glaring and not at all happy for the interruption. 

Dori, Ricky and Cam all moaned.

“And if any of you are late again, even by a second, you will be factionless.” Eric turned to the rest of the room. “That goes for all of you initiates. My time is too valuable to waste. Be here when asked, ready to start.”

Four noticed that all of the initiates were on edge from that moment on, the stark reminder that they were not members yet clearly getting through the sleep induced haze of earlier that morning.

“Well now that is out of the way,” Tris began, “let’s get on with today’s training. We will be in here every day from 7am to 6pm, with an hour break for lunch at 12.30pm. Today you will learn some fighting moves, both offensive and defensive, in the morning followed by knife throwing in the evening. After dinner you will not have any training so you can do as you please. Any questions?” She looked around.

Nobody answered, so Uriah and Christina went through a couple of offensive moves, explaining the theory behind them and demonstrating them before they set the initiates to work on the punching bags. Between the five trainers there (Tris, Christina, Uriah, Eric, and Four himself, not that Eric was being of much help) after observing for a while they began to correct the initiates postures and stances.


	17. Of Boys and Men

VALKYRIE POV

Valkyrie couldn’t help but be impressed by the small team of people training them. As she worked, she discreetly studied them.

She found that Uriah was unexpectedly graceful, his movements fluid but at the same time very clearly powerful as he demonstrated some of the more complicated techniques for them. He clearly had a lot of practice so she assumed he must have been a Dauntless-born. She had been surprised to see him that morning, recognising him as one of the people who had pranked her last night.

Four was an interesting character. He was firm in his instructions but always ready to help if someone needed it. He kept his face blank and tried not to let anyone see his emotions. However, occasionally when he thought nobody was looking he glanced at Six almost tenderly. It took Valkyrie only a moment to realise that he either liked her or he was her boyfriend. After a while she started to notice Six glancing back and sending small smiles his way, confirming the latter theory.

Christina seemed to be fairly quiet this morning, nowhere near as bubbly as she had been last night. It looked like she wasn’t a morning person. When she did give her opinion, it was short and to the point, with a brutal honesty about it that led Valkyrie to conclude that she was once a Candor. 

Eric was distant and snarky, though occasionally she would catch him watching her with interest. He and Four kept throwing each other dirty glares as they worked, something that amused Valkyrie.

And then there was Six. When Valkyrie had first met her she had seemed very… average. She didn’t look completely outrageous like most of the other Dauntless, and seemed very rational. However the incident with the knife earlier had proven to Valkyrie that Six was a spitfire in her own right. She was Dauntless and she knew when to show it.

Valkyrie’s study of her trainers was interrupted by the initiate next to her talking loudly to Six. Of course, that initiate just had to be Marco, the annoying Amity transfer. Noting the glare on Four’s face, she attempted to tune into the conversation.

“And what makes you think I would even consider going out with you initiate?” Six asked, voice low and deadly.

“Everybody knows that Dauntless ladies like a real man…” He replied.

The Dauntless-borns were clearly trying not to laugh as Six continued to look at him incredulously.

“… and you deserve someone special, not just some average Dauntless thug. I recon I could fairly easily fit the bill there.” He continued undeterred.

Six merely raised an eyebrow.

“So how about we meet for drinks tonight?” He asked cockily.

Valkyrie watched on, completely stunned as Six smiled at Marco and began to walk closer to him. Marco puffed his chest out and smirked, thinking that he’d won her over. Valkyrie, however, realised just moments before Six reached her target that her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

SLAP!

Quicker than Valkyrie had though possible for a human being, Six’s hand shot out and smacked Marco across the face. A look of complete and utter shock took over his features as he whipped his head back around to stare at her.

THWAP!

Her leg flew up, hitting Marco square in the groin, the look of shock on his face contorting into a mask pure agony. He attempted to curl into a ball on the floor to protect himself but Six had other plans.

“ARRRG!”

Marco gave out a muffled scream as Six grabbed him by the ear, twisting it and forcing him to sit up. Valkyrie saw a glimmer of fear in his eyes as Six pulled her hand back for the final blow.

THUMP!

Six punched Marco square in the face, knocking him out cold on the floor, blood spurting from his now broken nose. The Dauntless-born initiates began to cheer. A few tense minutes later, when he came to again, she looked down at him with a smirk.

“Firstly, I would rather be factionless than date you.” Six said, directing her speech at Marco. 

She then turned to the rest of the initiates, looking up and down the line. 

“Secondly, to all of you males in the room, you would have to be a thousand times better than that to even have a hope of challenging my boyfriend.” She paused and smiled, the other trainers smiling with her. “I will set him loose on the next person to flirts with me. You have all been warned.”

“Show’s over, everybody. Get back to work. Your pathetic attempts at punches won’t fix themselves, and nobody is leaving here tonight until I see improvement!” Eric yelled.

All of the initiates went back to work quickly, nobody wanting to incur Eric’s wrath. Valkyrie still noticed several of the males casting glances at Six, but now their faces showed not lust, but frustration or even fear.

Valkyrie couldn’t help but snigger and glanced at Four to see his reaction.


	18. Misconceptions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all our readers, especially those who have bookmarked us!
> 
> have another chapter!

FOUR POV

He tried not to smile as his girlfriend (oh how great it was that she was his) handed the cocky Amity boy’s ass to him in front of all the initiates. Yes, he was proud, but he had to keep that to himself for now. He and Tris had decided before initiation not to let the transfers know that they were an item. Good thing they had, otherwise this morning Tris wouldn’t have had a chance to show them the side of her personality that had been dubbed ‘Scary Six’ by their group of friends.

He had not been pleased when the three late initiates had all been Dauntless-borns. You would have thought they would know better than the transfers not to be late, after all, they all knew how nasty Eric could be when he wanted to. However, maybe they had spotted what he had. So far during this year’s initiation, Eric had seemed…. distracted. 

Speaking of distracted, Four felt rather than saw a pair of eyes on him. He turned to meet the gaze of the cocky blonde initiate from Erudite. She seemed to be smirking, and a part of his mind realised that Tris had just told the group that she had a boyfriend. Damn Erudites. Too bloody smart for their own good. She had to have figured it out.

And he thought they had been subtle enough to avoid detection for a few more days at least.

He heard Eric’s call for everyone to get back to their punching bags, but the blonde seemed slower to move than the others. 

“Get back to work initiate.” Four put on his meanest instructor tone, Tris, Uriah, and Christina to look at him in shock. “Just because you’re from Erudite, doesn’t mean you know everything.”

He strode over to the girl, whose smirk had turned to an angry glare at the mention of her old faction. He pulled a sneer that Eric himself would have been proud of before continuing.

“Case and point, your punches are pathetic. Keep this up and you’ll never make it to stage two, let alone pass initiation.”

Four saw Eric sniggering as he walked further down the line, leaving the blonde to figure out where she was going wrong on her own. At noticing Eric’s amusement, he began to feel a little bit guilty. He hadn’t meant to be so harsh initially, but something about that particular initiate irked him. She looked familiar somehow. That and she seemed to be able to tolerate Eric at dinner yesterday. In his book, anyone who could stand Eric was bad news.

But he couldn’t keep acting like this. He had always prided himself on being nothing like Eric, and he sure as hell wasn’t about to become a monster over one initiate.

However, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be keeping a close eye on said initiate during training hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos if you care! comments are also welcome.


	19. Advantage of Surprise

ERIC POV

He really hadn’t known that Four had it in him to be so nasty to a girl. If he ever doubted the ex-stiff’s ability to shut down his abnegation side, he didn’t now. Maybe this was yet another effect that finally getting laid had on him.

Eric tried not to snigger, he really did. It wasn’t often that Four was so far off the mark about an initiates abilities, and yet here he was yelling at arguably the strongest initiate the group, telling her that she wouldn’t pass stage one. Usually the insufferable ex-stiff was right about initiates and their level of potential, which had constantly pissed Eric off. Last year the combination of Max winning the bet and Four leading Tris to victory had left him fuming, and had also lost him a lot of points.

Seeing that Four was so wrong about Valkyrie brightened his day a little. He couldn’t wait to rub it in the arrogant prats face when he was proven wrong. Then again, if he hadn’t met her outside the hub yesterday, or seen her practicing earlier that morning, he would probably have done the same, just in a more encouraging manner, he liked to think. 

Who knows, by now he may have been hanging her over the chasm like the smart-mouthed Candor chick from last year, the one that was an instructor this year. He still hadn’t bothered to learn her name, he had more important things to do with his time.

He was supposed to be the scary one of the lot of them, but this year Four seemed to have grown a back bone, much to his surprise. He only wondered how long it would last before he changed back into a complete pussy again.

He was still smirking as he walked down the line of struggling initiaites, deliberately bumping into Four on the way, and stalked over to what appeared to all of the other instructors to be the weakest of the lot. She was punching the bag a little harder now, but was still holding back a lot, the mask of fury on her face telling him exactly what she thought of Four’s little outburst. 

Lowering his voice to make sure that even the initiates next to her couldn’t hear them, he began to talk to her.

“Why are you holding back when you could be proving him wrong?” he asked.

“How do you know I’m holding back Eric? Is it that impossible that I might actually be the worst out of all of us?” She asked just as quietly in return.

“To the first, call it instinct. To the second, with what I saw in the early hours of this morning, most definitely.” He tried not to smirk as she whirled around to give him a shocked look.

“How?” she asked.

“This is Dauntless and I am a Dauntless leader. I have eyes everywhere” he replied, mentally stopping himself from telling her exactly how he had followed her around all morning. 

“You never answered my question initiate” He growled lowly. “I answered yours, now you should answer mine. Why are you holding back when you could humiliate Four?” 

“Advantage of Surprise” was her reply. Upon a look from Eric, she explained in more detail. “I want to annihilate my first opponent so that the others will think twice before messing with me. I can’t really do that if my first opponent knowns all of my moves. It will ruin the surprise.”

Catching Four glancing their way, Eric quickly turned back to Valkyrie, mask firmly in place. Valkyrie too had spotted Four looking at them, and had gone back to her pathetic attempts at hitting the bag in front of her. Seeing that Four still wasn’t buying it, Eric chose to push Valkyrie to the side.

“Look here initiate, your punches are so pathetic that at this rate you won’t even last the night, let alone to the end of stage one. At this rate I would be able to fight you off with my pinkie finger. It’s pathetic.” He snarled at her, gaining the attention of everyone in the room.

“I’m gonna show you lot once, and only once” he addressed the room at large, taking most of the attention off Valkyrie. “THIS is how you throw a punch.” 

THWAP THWAP WHACK!

He threw three punches in quick succession at Valkyrie’s punching bag, making the chain creak and the bag swing violently. When he looked up again there were several transfers looking at him in awe and more Dauntless-born initiates still looking at him with begrudging respect.

“I expect to see improvement.” He looked around again. “From all of you” he looked back to Valkyrie. “Now get back to work!” He yelled.

Turning back to Valkyrie he pretended to supervise her practice and continued to talk to her quietly, Four having stopped staring the moment he had started yelling.

“There is no point to your plan if you are versing a low ranking opponent. The other initiates won’t get the message if you are up against a pushover.” He noted to her.

“Then I will be in the first fight of the stage, up against the strongest possible opponent.” Valkyrie replied, swinging at the bag just a little harder than she had been.

Eric chuckled quietly.

“And just how are you going to manage that initiate? We instructors determine who versus who and at what time.” He asked, eyebrow raised.

“Then it’s a good thing you want me to humiliate Four, isn’t it?” Valkyrie asked with a smile of her own.

“Okay, I’ll see what I can do. No guarantees though.” Eric acquiesced, before continuing to walk down the line of initiates with a smile on his face.

This was going to be good.


	20. Throwing Fail

TRIS POV

Lunch that day had been uneventful. The initiates had filed calmly into the cafeteria and sat down to eat quietly, thoroughly exhausted by the activities of earlier that morning. Even Eric hadn’t made any fuss as they sat together to eat their meals.

Tris sighed as they got up to make their way back to the training room. Tobias had been quiet most of the day, asides from yelling at the first jumper, odd behavior for him which was worrying her. He was usually so scared of turning into his father that he didn’t single out initiates unless they asked stupid questions or weren’t paying attention. 

She had never seen him go after an initiate for not doing well before, especially concerning was the fact that he made no move to help her. Tris hadn’t even seen her do anything to trigger that sort of behavior from Tobias.

As everyone filed into the room, Tris made her way over to the line painted a short ways back from the target boards and picked up the nearest set of knives from the table. Seeing her do this, Christina began to speak.

“Listen up people.” All eyes turned to her. “This afternoon we are going to teach you how to throw knives. For the Dauntless-borns, most of you already know how to do this so have a little patience as we teach the transfers.” She looked at the now smirking group. 

“Also to note, just because you already know how to do this does not mean that you can muck around. You still need to practice as we will be assessing you on this.” A small groan came from the dauntless-borns at this reminder. Eric then spoke up.

“Transfers, watch and learn as Six demonstrates how to do this properly. This will be the only time you are shown how to do this.” He looked her way with a nod, indicating she should start. She moved into her throwing stance.

“Form is very important.” Eric continued. “Take note of how she has placed her feet shoulder length apart, one further forward than the other, toe pointing where she wants the knife to go. She holds the knife in a firm grip but also in a way that is easy to release from.” He nods at her to continue. She starts to practice the throwing movement a couple of times.

“Also note how she bends a little at the knees as she follows through with the motion, which is crucial to put power into your throws.” With this last piece of advice, Eric nods one more time to her and Tris prepares to throw as an example.

She carefully checks her stance and then throws, sending the knife flying perfectly straight…..

…. Only to have it hit the board with a clang and fall to the floor.

The dauntless-born stand silent, shocked that she missed. So do the transfers, well all of them except the Amity boy that had hit on her earlier, he smirks and sniggers to his friends.

Tris snaps out of her shock and turns to Eric and the other instructors, face red with embarrassment. Of all the days for her to miss completely, it just had to be today. Tobias chooses that moment to speak up before Eric can.

“Even the best of us don’t hit the board every time. This is why we must practice.” He turns to her again. “Throw again Six. I’m sure you’ll get it this time.”

She throws again, making sure to put more spin into the blade.

Again the blade fails to stick.

Tobias raises an eyebrow and walks over to her.

“I’m fine Four. I can do this.” She snips, frustrated. She moves into position and throws another knife. Again it fails.

Tobias hold out his hand as the initiates begin to murmur amongst themselves. The infamous Six missing three throws in a row? Unheard of!

Tris gives Tobias her last knife and he looks carefully at it. 

Then he begins to laugh. With a smile he tosses the knife to Uriah who catches it carefully and looks at him inquiringly. 

Four walks over to the targets and picks up the other knives, smiling bigger and bigger as he checks each one, before tossing one to Christina and one to Eric. They all look at him questioningly.

“It wasn’t Six’s fault these knives aren’t sticking. I doubt even I could make them do so. Run your finger over the blades if you want to check. You’ll find they are completely blunted. These aren’t throwing knives. They’re prop knives. Someone” He looked at Uriah with a smirk “must have swapped them out.”

Tris sends a glare Uriah’s way, but is surprised to find him actually examining the knife in his hands very carefully. It can’t have been him. She also looks at Zenith, who is smiling but also looks confused. He couldn’t of done it either, there was no way either of them had poker faces that good. That left one person…

“I’m going to kill Zeke.” She murmurs finally, before stalking over to the table and grabbing another set of knives. She throws all of them in rapid succession, hearing a satisfying thunk as each of them make their mark. Four perfect throws. All landed in the center of the center ring. The initiates had stopped murmuring and now stared at her in awe. All of her fellow instructors did too. Uriah was the one that finally spoke up.

“Your aim is great when you are pissed off, Six. Remind me not to mess with her when she has knives around” He added, looking to Four. 

Eric smirked.

“Alright everybody. These knives won’t throw themselves. What are you waiting for? Grab a set each and start throwing!” he hollered

As the initiates hurried to grab their knives, Tris was too busy pondering what she was going to do to Zeke that she failed to notice a certain blonde Erudite transfer smiling like a Cheshire cat.


	21. Challenge Accepted

ZENITH POV

The rest of training for the day passed fairly uneventfully. Zenith and his fellow initiates had started to get the throwing knives to stick to the target boards within two hours of practice starting. Well all of them except one. The female Amity initiate, Clove was her name, had yet to get one of her knives to even hit the target, let alone stick to it. He also noticed that Valkyrie was better at throwing knives than she had been at hitting the bags. 

Not that that was saying much. 

She was barely getting the knives to stick to the outer circles of the target boards and her aim was very erratic. Tris tried to help her, but it didn’t seem to have made much of a difference. Eric meanwhile just stood around, smirking every time he looked in her direction. Zenith had no clue why, but decided not to question it. His mind was far too busy pondering something else at the time. Something far more important.

By the time they were about to leave for dinner, Zenith could reliably hit the centre of the targets and nine times out of ten his knives would stick. He had stayed a bit later than the others to keep practicing, Four assuring him that his aim and strike rate would be prefect in time, and was just about to leave when Uriah sidled up to him.

“Hey Zen, walk with me bro?” he asked.

“Sure” Zenith replied with a grin, and the two of them headed towards the dining hall.

They didn’t say much on their way, but when they got there Uriah signalled Zeke immediately and they sat down together. 

“I thought we were keeping distance to avoid suspicion?” Zenith queried, looking at the two older pranksters curiously.

“Well we were, but we have to ask Zenith. You seemed confused when Tris couldn’t hit the targets earlier.” Uriah began in a whisper.

“We have to know, have you miraculously developed an incredible poker face, or were you not the one who set that prank up?” Zeke finished for him.

“Wait, what?! You think I did that? I thought you did it!” Zenith whispered to them. Both of the older boys shook their heads.

“It wasn’t us.” Zeke told him, straight-faced.

“Then how do you know about it?” Zenith asked Zeke.

“I was on camera duty. I saw the whole thing go down, and then later on Eric came up to demand the video footage. Whoever set the prank up, they avoided the cameras. We couldn’t figure out who did it.” Zeke replied with a sigh.

We might be able to narrow it down further than that though.” Zenith noted and Zeke perked up a little. “Whoever they were they know Tris well enough to know that she was demonstrating today.” Zeke looked confused as to why this would matter but Uriah caught Zenith’s train of thought.

“That’s right! Because if Four had of been throwing today, the prank would have failed. He always fiddles around and checks the knife blades before he throws to make sure they are sharp.” Uriah whispered excitedly.

“That means whoever they are, they’re in on this year’s training routines.” 

“So that narrows it down to instructors and leadership.” Zeke noted.

“We know you didn’t do it, Uriah, and Christina wouldn’t humiliate Tris unless its fashion related.” Zenith whispered. 

“Four wouldn’t humiliate Tris for any reason, he’s too whipped.” Uriah added

“And the leaders are not involved in training that much…except Eric…” Zenith paused and his eyes widened. “Eric” was all he managed before Zeke chimed in again.

“Nah, it wasn’t Eric. He was genuinely looking for the culprit and confused when we couldn’t catch the person on tape.” Zeke replied.

“Then who was it?” Uriah asked. The others only shrugged in response.

“Whoever it was, we can’t let this challenge to our title as Dauntless’s best pranksters go unpunished.” Zeke declared, sitting up straighter and looking at Zenith.

“Your mission has changed. To get into the Petrad Prank Crew, you must out-do and expose this new prankster as soon as possible.” Uriah nodded in agreement.

“I won’t let you down.” Zenith replied, before getting up to leave, dinner completely forgotten.

That evening as he set up his next prank, his mind wandered to the rival prankster, who was by now most likely fast asleep in their own bed.

Whoever they were, one thing was certain.

If it was a war they wanted, it was a war they would get.


	22. Early Morning Surprises

VALKYRIE POV

 

Day two of training saw Valkyrie sneaking out of the initiate dormitory before sunrise, once again headed for the training room. Again she stuck to the shadows, avoided most of the cameras, and managed to circumvent Four who was desperately searching for his morning coffee.

All was going well so far. 

However, once she arrived in the training room, she immediately noticed that something was different. What that something was, she had no clue, but she was certainly going to find out. Taking a tentative step forward, she edged into the training room, keeping her eyes open and alert.

She didn’t see anything, and was just about to relax when, taking a step forward, something caught on her foot, and snapped. Movement in her peripheral vision alerted her just in time for her reflexes to kick in and flip her out of the path of a set of four swinging projectiles. 

She turned back around, looking towards the training room door once more, and realised that the projectiles were actually a series of water balloons filled with what appeared to be different coloured paints. She was about to move closer when she remembered that just before the projectiles had been set in motion her foot had come into contact with something. 

By looking down and squinting, Valkyrie was able to make out the faint lines of five tripwires (one of which mere millimetres from her feet), and what appeared to be a snapped one closest to the door. Her Erudite mind immediately supplied to her that these wires were the triggers for the device. The ingenuity of the system impressed her.

With a small smile on her face, Valkyrie headed over to the punching bags and began to warm up, putting her headphones in her ears and trusting the yet to be triggered tripwires to alert her to any unexpected visitors.

 

ERIC POV

Not ten minutes after this incident, in another part of Dauntless, Eric woke up in the darkness of his room, strangely alert for 5.30am in the morning. Unperturbed by the time, he got dressed and made his way down to the training room, convinced that a certain blonde transfer could be found there.

As he rounded the corner of the training room doors, the first thing that Eric noticed was that the aforementioned blonde was hard at work over by the punching bags. The second thing he noticed was that there were paint balloons hanging from the ceiling. He did not, however, notice the five un-triggered tripwires beyond. His curiosity getting the better of him, he moved to take a closer look, walking around the hanging balloons as he did so. 

He barely felt the first tripwire snap, and upon realising that a new set of paint bombs were flying at him, stumbled backwards, triggering the other four sets. He barely had time to let out a shout of surprise before he was hit with four of them to the head, paint splashing into his eyes. 

 

VALKYRIE POV

Valkyrie nearly jumped out of her skin as a loud shout of “SHIT!” echoed around the training room. She whipped around to see Eric, who appeared to be blinded by paint, stumbling around, walking into the rest of the swinging balloons and getting completely covered in the stuff. It was only when he stumbled and fell to the ground that she decided she better go and help him.

Grabbing her water bottle and towel, she approached the downed Dauntless leader with caution. By this point in time, Eric had managed to sit up and was trying to get the paint out of his eyes, and failing spectacularly as his hands were covered as well. He was also hissing in pain.

“Stay still Eric, you’re only making it worse” She told him, carefully checking for un-triggered tripwires before moving to kneel on the paint covered floor beside him.

“It’s in my eyes, I need to get it out” Eric replied gruffly, turning towards where her voice had come from.

“I can see that, and I’ve got water and a towel here.” She said, putting a hand on his shoulder, causing him to jump slightly before relaxing. “If you let me, I’ll help you wash it out.” She continued, trying to keep her voice calm and free of laughter.

“Please” was all Eric replied.

“OK. Can you lean your head back for me so I can wash the stuff off your face? It’ll stop any more from getting in your eyes” She told him, and was greatly surprised when he did so.

As soon as she had done that, she got him to open his eyes and carefully used the water to flush the blue and green paint out. When she thought she had got it all, she passed Eric her towel and he used it to dry his face off.

“Thanks. Not many people would have done that for me around here.” He told her, eyes still a bit red but a small smile on his face.

“You’re welcome. Anyway, it could have just as easily been me.” She replied, smiling back at him.

Eric carefully got up, making sure not to slip on the paint-covered floor, and went back to examining the trigger system for the paint bombs. Turning to Valkyrie, he spoke again, curiosity clearly displayed on his face.

“How did you avoid triggering them?”

“I triggered one, but my reflexes saved me. I managed to flip over the other five tripwires.” Valkyrie replied, still smiling. “It’s an interesting set-up. Do you think the Petrads’ could be behind it?” 

“Looks like something they would do, but it seems a bit messy for their tastes. They aren’t known for aiming at random targets. They usually pick a target and stick with them. Collateral damage isn’t their thing.” Eric replied, brain hard at work. “This is messy and untargeted. More like a Thompson prank than a Petrad prank.”

“Thompson? I thought you said on the first night of initiation that the Petrads were unrivalled around here?” Valkyrie asked, looking slightly confused.

“Thompson is going through a sort of initiation to be in the Petrad’s Prank Crew.” Eric replied with a laugh. “You’ve met him actually. He sat across from us at dinner on the first night, he’s an initiate this year too. You know him as Zenith.”

“The second jumper?” she replied, cocking her head slightly.

“Yeah, and a right pain in the arse.” Eric nodded, before looking at his watch and turning back to her. 

“We have time. You should get some practice at knife throwing this morning. You didn’t appear to be that good yesterday. I’ll unlock the knives or you” he said as he moved to the training room armoury cupboard.

“I would have thought you of all people would realise I was holding back” She replied with a smirk.

“Well it never hurts to practice anyway.” Eric replied, handing her four knives and nudging her towards the targets, stripping off his paint soaked shirt to reveal a clean singlet underneath.

With a cocky smile, Valkyrie took her position, better than it had been yesterday, and rapidly threw the knives at the target, getting them all to stick within the outer reaches of the inner circle. She then turned back to Eric with a self-satisfied smirk.

“Good, but you could still improve on that.” Eric told her with a smile. “Your form isn’t quite right. You need to widen the gap between your feet and extend your arm more when you throw, try to straighten it out more, like this.” He continued, moving closer to her.

She couldn’t help but tense up as Eric’s hand found her waist, his foot nudged hers out a bit more, and his body moved in tight behind hers, his arm running alongside hers as she held the knife he had pulled out of his boot and pressed into her hand. 

Mentally she cursed herself for being so flighty, that her mother had made her so weak and scared. However, she tried to focus on the fact that Eric wasn’t trying to hurt her, and was able to calm herself enough to pay attention to what he was telling her.

Well, as much attention as she could with his muscled chest up against her back.

“…And when you follow through with the movement, try to fully extend your arm so that it ends up straight when you’ve let go of the knife.” He finished his spiel.

Despite only having heard half of it, Valkyrie nodded, and with Eric still holding her waist and arm she drew the knife back and threw it, his arm helping to guide her aim.

The knife landed with a solid thud in the centre of the target board’s inner ring.

Over the next hour, Valkyrie kept throwing with Eric making small changes to her posture and stance, and by the end she was able to throw perfectly every time.

Looking at his watch once again, Eric spoke up.

“We better get to breakfast. Four’s probably already woken the initiates, so if he asks where you were…” He trailed off as they grabbed their stuff and started making their way to the door.

“I’ll think of something” She replied with a small smile, hoping to herself that she would have Eric for company in more of her morning training sessions.

“Sure, just make it believable” Eric replied. He was about to add something more when he stepped in a puddle of paint, his legs slipping out from beneath him.

THUD!

Eric landed heavily on the floor with a bewildered look on his face and Valkyrie couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Chuckling a little, Eric extended a hand and Valkyrie helped to pull him up.

“Well, let’s not do that again” Eric said with a smirk.

Valkyrie was about to reply when they were interrupted by Four coming in the training room door.

“What are you doing here initiate, and what the heck happened here?” He asked, eyebrow raised as he stopped sort of the mess on the floor.

“Valkyrie is here for extra practice because I told her to.” Eric replied, barely giving Four a glance. “I should get going, I need to talk to Mr. Zenith Thompson about the appropriate use of paint.” 

“I should get to breakfast.” Valkyrie said.

He and Valkyrie both strode around Four and walked out the door, leaving the training room a multi-coloured mess for Four to clean up.


	23. Shooting Four

ERIC POV

Breakfast went slowly. Very slowly. He was beginning to get more than a little frustrated at the time it was taking the brats to wake up.

Then again, it didn’t help that he was comparing them to Valkyrie, who was by now wide awake, rearing to go, and (unfortunately for him) full of sass. He was on his third cup of tea, and there was only ten minutes until the start of training.

After the prank that he and Valkyrie had encountered earlier that morning, he had headed back to his apartment to wash off the paint that was covering his person. From there he had woken up the initiates, and dragged a half asleep Zenith into the corridor for an ear-bashing regarding said prank. 

Because of the time it had taken to wash the paint out of his hair (the blonde in his mohawk was still tinted blue), he had woken up the initiates twenty minutes later than usual – hence they were still struggling to wake up at 7:20am.

Getting up from his seat in a (relatively) quiet corner of the dining hall, Eric stepped up onto the table he had been seated at and yelled at the initiates.

“Hurry it up you lot, it’s time to get moving. If you know what’s good for you, you won’t piss around and waste my time!” he bellowed.

A few of the initiates jumped a little at the noise, but still moved slowly as they went to put their dishes away, walking at a pace normally reserved only for snails rather than putting any effort in.

Eric was about to yell again when a loud voice boomed down from above him.

“Move your asses! When a Dauntless leader tells you to get a move on, you do so! Preferably at a run! Not at a crawl! I’ve seen 90-year-old Abnegation grandmas move faster than you lot!” Max hollered.

Eric smirked as both Tris and Four wrinkled their noses, and Christina and Uriah sniggered at that particular proclamation. As the initiates gathered round their trainers, Eric looked over the half asleep group with disgust.

“Uriah” He said, looking at the most youthful of the lot. “I think our initiates are having trouble waking up this morning. How about you take them for a run around the compound before leading them to where we are training for the first half today?” He looked at the other instructors. “Four, Christina, and I will go set up. Six will go with you and the initiates.”

As they parted ways, Eric heard the brats groan as Uriah urged them on with a far too cheerful voice. The whined even more when they realized that Six had set a fast pace, having taken point.

Eric, Four, and Christina headed to the elevator in silence, riding up to the top floor before taking the stairs to the roof. The bright sunlight outside was in sharp contrast to the gloomy caverns the Dauntless called home, but by now the three of them were used to it and didn’t need to pause to adjust before beginning to set up the morning’s activities.

The initiates, however, were another story. 

Eric smirked as the initiates stood squinting as they arrived on the roof for training, some of them still yawning. Their morning run had woken most of them up somewhat, which was a good thing. After all, today’s lesson was how to shoot a gun.

Four took charge and immediately split them up into two groups. The first was the Dauntless-born, who largely already knew how to fire a gun so were set to dismantling, cleaning, and reassembling their training weapons before they could shoot.

Then there were the Transfers, who were largely clueless in general. Their first task was to learn how to actually shoot the damn things.

Four was quick to take up position, demonstrating the correct stance for the transfers as Uriah and Eric watched on and Tris and Christina supervised the Dauntless Borns.

Eric then decided that Four was getting too close to abying the intiates, and spoke up.

“You’ve seen the stance, well those of you paying attention have. Now it’s your turn. Pick up a weapon and stand at your marks.” The initiates looked at him in shock, as did Four. “MOVE!” He bellowed, causing them to jump and scurry into position.

The first initiate to fire their weapon was Ash, a small girl from Candor. She missed the target completely and promptly fell back on her ass on the gravel rooftop due to the recoil. Eric was a little impressed. He hadn’t expected her to be the first to try. She was a mousy looking initiate, with no real dauntlessness in her appearance, just short, curly brown hair and big doe eyes.

Soon after princess’ attempt at shooting (Eric decided this was her nickname), the other initiates began to follow suit, each and every one of the missing the targets and failing to deal with the recoil. Even Valkyrie wasn’t having any luck.

Twenty minutes after Four and Uriah started trying to help them out, they were still failing miserably and Eric decided enough was enough.

“All right, you’ve wasted enough ammo. Four, please show this halfwits how to shoot a gun!” Eric bellowed.

Four once again took up his stance, the initiates now watching carefully, trying to pick up where they were going wrong. He took longer than normal to aim his weapon, (babying the initiates again in Eric’s mind) and somewhat tensed before he took the shot.

BANG!

Even Eric’s eyebrows shot up when he looked at the end of the range. The target was left completely unscathed.

Four frowned and took aim once again.

BANG!

Nothing.

BANG!

Still nothing.  
BANG!

Four looked at his clean target, and then looked at his weapon, completely perplexed. 

Silence reigned over the roof, not even Eric daring to make a comment.

Well, at least it did until a certain blonde initiate burst into laughter.

Eric raised his eyebrows at Valkyrie as Four fumed. He was about to ask what the hell had gotten into his normally fairly sane initiate when she stopped laughing and looked at him with a smirk.

“Hey Eric!” She giggled. “Is your inner Erudite thinking what mine is?”

Sending her a confused glare (Why did she have to figure out and then proceed to announce to all of the initiates that he was from Erudite?) he took Four’s weapon off of him and proceeded to examine it.

After checking the magazine and reloading the weapon with a smirk, Eric pulled up the gun…

…and aimed straight at Four’s head.

“What are you doing?! That's a loaded wep...” Four began to yell, but was cut off.

BANG!

Four remained completely unscathed.

“Damn it. They actually are blanks!” Eric pouted.

There was a moment of silence, the initiates and gathered instructors looking at Eric like he was crazy, before it was broken as Tris cracked up laughing. Four was astonished, and his expression quickly went from confusion to anger as he turned to Tris.

“Why are you laughing?! I could have died!” Four howled.

Tris either didn’t notice or didn’t care at the time, as she continued to laugh so hard that she fell to the floor. Soon the entire group besides Four was in fits of laughter, or at the very least smiling.

“Alright, that’s enough fun for one day.” A chuckling Max said, appearing out of nowhere. “Time to get back to training. Get yourselves some real ammo and get back to work!” he added, before turning to the instructors. “Try not to kill each other before lunch, I really don’t want to deal with the paperwork until at least afternoon.” He added with a smirk and walked over to see how the initiates were doing.

Happily for Eric, Valkyrie was the first to hit the target that morning.


	24. Keeping Promises

VALKYRIE POV

 

The next day started much the same as the last two had for Valkyrie. 

Up early in the morning for secret training, where she was joined by Eric again. A quick breakfast followed by heading back to the training room with her fellow initiates to practice their fighting stances and punches, where she again played down her skills to the point where Four told her he was certain she would be factionless soon. At lunch she sat with Ash, Lyss, Zoe, and Echo, who for some unknown reason seemed to like her company. 

Finally, when it was time to head back to the training room, they walked in the doors to find a large object, most probably a board, covered in a sheet standing in the middle of the room. Beside the board stood the five instructors, Eric, Four, Tris, Christina, and Uriah.

“Listen up everyone” Uriah yelled and the nattering going on throughout the crowd of initiates ceased abruptly.

“This afternoon we are going to start the first round of hand to hand fights.” He continued. “You have all been pitted against a fellow initiate who you will fight in the ring in front of everyone else.”

Whispers started to run through the crowd once more at this announcement, and Valkyrie silently tossed Eric a smirk, which he promptly returned. Finally, she would get to stop pretending and actually fight.

“We will be scoring you on how well you do today, so make sure you put all of your training to use.” Tris added in, looking at them all.

“The pairings for today will be…” Christina said, before pulling the sheet off with a dramatic flourish.

Several gasps went up throughout the crowd as Valkyrie read the list.

 

Valkyrie vs. Marco  
Zenith vs. Cam  
Ash vs. Clove  
Dori vs. Tyson  
Ricky vs. Zoe  
Leia vs. Lyss  
Justin vs. Daniel  
Lewis vs. Victor  
Echo vs. Gauge  
Hank vs. Mason

 

Seeing her name paired with Marco’s, her smirk intensified. He was definitely the strongest out of the initiates, and she certainly had no problem with the notion of putting him in his place.

“Alright, let’s get this started, we don’t have all day.” Eric hollered, silencing the hushed whispers of the initiates. “First Jumper, Last Jumper, in the ring. Time to fight.” He announced as he looked at Valkyrie and Marco with a smirk.

Just as she stepped into the ring, she heard Four whisper quietly to Eric.

“Bet you one hundred points that Valkyrie will lose within three minutes.” He said, smirk clear in his tone of voice.

“I’ll take that bet.” Eric replied just as cockily. 

“Better be prepared to pay up.” Four replied.

Eric decided then to recap the rules.

“Remember, the fight ends when one of you cannot continue. Usually this means that by the time this fight ends I expect one of you to be out cold on the ground. There is no giving up. Dauntless never surrender, so neither will you.” He nodded to the two of them, eyes lingering on her a moment longer than they should have. 

“Begin” He yelled.

No sooner than Eric let the word out of his mouth, Valkyrie let lose, kicking Marco right in the wrist, which everyone heard break with a sickening crunch. He let out a howl that was quickly cut short by her next move. 

Within the space of a second, she spun herself around to horse-kick him in the nuts, forcing him down to the ground, clutching his family jewels and trying to support his wrist at the same time. 

She looked down on him, barely pausing to note the look of fear and rage in his eyes as she performed her final move, combining an aerial twist and a roundhouse kick, hitting him square in the face. His nose broke with another sickening crunch and he fell to the floor, completely unconscious. 

Just like that it was over. She had beaten him in less than ten seconds. He had never even landed a hit on her.

Turning to her audience, who were watching her in shocked silence, she looked at Four and said two words.

“Pay up.”

Four went white, then red, and quickly handed Eric his Dauntless ID to transfer the points. Eric did so in silence, with a huge smirk plastered on his face.

Matching his smile, Valkyrie strode up to Eric cockily, handing over her ID. 

“My cut please” She said, looking him in the eye, daring him not to give it to her.

He raised an eyebrow, but decided to indulge her, transferring 15 out of the 100 points to her.

She watched over his shoulder as he did so, waiting for him to finish before narrowing her eyes at him.

“15 points? Come on Eric! I’m worth at least 25 points here. I completely wasted him!” She exclaimed. 

With a sigh, Eric swiped her ID card through the slot on his tablet once more and transferred the other ten points, rolling his eyes at her Cheshire grin when he handed it back to her.

Meanwhile, out of the corner of her eye Valkyrie could see that Four was steadily becoming more and more gob-smacked. Tris and Uriah both still appeared to be in shock, but Christina, being the ex-Candor, opened her mouth to put into words what everyone besides Eric and herself must have been thinking.

“Well I can certainly tell you, I wasn’t expecting that.” She said, her voice holding a hint of incredulity.

“She did well.” Eric replied, catching a few weird looks from the other instructors before looking at his watch. “We’ve wasted enough time, Next fight. Zenith, Cam, into the ring, let’s go!” He yelled.

The rest of the fights weren’t nearly as quick. 

As Zenith and Cam took to the ring, Valkyrie re-joined the other initiates who shied away from her as they watched Four pick up the unconscious form of Marco and head to the infirmary. Nothing much of note happened in the rest of the fights, but Valkyrie watched carefully, silently strategizing for future bouts.

Zenith pummelled Cam in the end, but they both came out of it still friends, both with matching black eyes and split lips. They laughed as they helped each other from the ring, all smiles as if this behaviour was completely normal.

Ash knocked Clove out after ten minutes of both girls dancing around each other. Both had been reluctant to hit the other at first, but had soon succumbed to a messy fight, with hair pulling and screaming.

Dori beat Tyson, but only barely, blacking out just after being declared the winner. Both were taken through to the infirmary suffering concussions and a broken nose between them.

Zoe and Ricky managed to knock each other out simultaneously, tying their bout. The look on the instructor’s faces was interesting as Eric leaned in to whisper to Valkyrie, telling her that nobody had tied since he and Four had been initiates.

Daniel won the fight between him and Justin, breaking Justin’s nose in the process. Though they were both still conscious when Four called the fight, they were not made to continue due to how pathetic their fighting skills were in general.

Lyss and Leia took a while, but eventually Lyss came out on top, knocking Leia’s head into the mat several times to render her unconscious. 

Gauge beat Echo to a pulp, the poor girl not even standing a chance as he landed blow after blow, beating her bloody until she lost conscious. Valkyrie noticed Four scowling at him after that display, clearly disapproving of his methods.

Lewis and Mason both lost their fights so badly it wasn’t worth remembering.


	25. Enlightenment

ZENITH POV

 

For a moment he was simply stunned. 

How the hell had that just happened? 

Since when had Valkyrie shown any sign of being able to kick ass? 

Zenith looked around the now silent group of initiates and instructors. Clearly he wasn’t the only one who hadn’t expected that. Still not really believing his eyes, he watched as Valkyrie strutted over to Eric, considering going to see if Zeke had caught that on camera up in the control room. He needed to see that again. Just to prove that he defiantly wasn’t seeing things.

And maybe to spread it around the compound while he was at it, after all, the Amity prat just got wasted.

Speaking of wasted, he refocused, seeing Eric hand over the points she demanded with only a small roll of his eyes.

Huh? Since when was Eric acting…..whipped?

Dang that girl had skills.

Maybe a bit too many skills…. No further education required if she could hold Eric on a leash. Probably not a wise idea to ask her out after all – Zeke and Uriah would have a field day if he got his ass kicked by a chick, no matter how fit. He would never regain his man card.

However, he could still ask her to train with him. She clearly had skills, but did she know all the dauntless moves his father had taught him? She could be a good ally to have during initiation, training with a top fighter like her wouldn’t hurt.

And she could also be useful in keeping Eric off his back.

He was snapped out of that particular train of thought when he heard his name being called. It was his time to take the ring now, and he was pitted up against one of his long-time friends. 

Sending Cam a smirk, they both stepped into the ring, dropping into the appropriate stances. They had fought numerous times as children, and it looked like this time would finish no different than the others – with him as the victor. 

With a nod from Four, they began circling one another.

“Just because we’re mates, doesn’t mean I’m gonna go easy on you” Cam called, keeping a close eye on Zenith the entire time.

“Good because you’re going down either way. You may as well make it entertaining for me!” Zenith retorted.

However, while his retort had been at least reasonably witty, his mind was still on the blonde erudite when Cam struck first, splitting his lip with a blow to the face.

“Wakey wakey!” Cam laughed at him, and Zenith took the opportunity to punch him in the stomach while his guard was down.

“Eggs and Bakey!” Zenith sang cheekily.

Both of them got serious after that, trading blow for blow, neither holding back any longer. This match was faster paced than their usual fights, but Cam was still having trouble landing any major hits on him.

However, just when Zenith though he was finally ready to end this match, a voice from the crowd caught his attention.

“Go Zenith! You can do it!” Zoe called out.

Momentarily stunned, because hey, a hot chick was cheering him on, Zenith lost focus and Cam landed another punch to his face. Falling backward due to the impact, Zenith winced before regaining his footing and fighting through the pain. With one final blow to Cam’s temple, Zenith won the match. While he waited for Cam to regain consciousness, he gently touched his eye. 

Great. 

Even with his skin tone he was definitely gonna have a shiner come tomorrow.

As Cam came round, Zenith offered him a hand up with a friendly smile. Sure, he kicked Cam’s butt, however unlike the transfers Cam knew how to lose graciously.

He and Cam strode off the mat, all smiles as the next two fighters nervously took their place. The girl from Amity, Clove, sneered at the Candor girl, Ash, as they took up their stances.

Four gave them the nod, and they started to dance around the ring, avoiding coming to blows for as long as possible. Eventually, Eric got bored.

“Hurry up and fight you two! We don’t have all century!” He yelled.

That got them moving. Suddenly they both lunged at one another, both abandoning the methods Uriah had shown them and going at it like a pair of wild animals, scratching, pulling each other’s hair, and shrieking like banshees. Zenith winced and covered his ears while Eric and Four looked on, bemused.

This went on for all of ten minutes before Ash pinned Clove down and strangles her to the point of losing consciousness with the blonde’s own hair braid.

“Amity goes down! Candor wins!” 

Everyone in the room suddenly turned towards him.

“Whoops did I say that out loud?” Zeith asked, blushing a little as Six and Valkyrie sniggered.

“Need I remind you Zenith that these girls are not Amity or Candor anymore? They are Dauntless initiates.” His father’s voice seemed to come out of nowhere. Seconds later the man himself stepped out of the shadows, a stern glare firmly imposed upon his features.

“But Eric does it!” He rebutted automatically.

“He’s a Dauntless leader. You’re not.” His father rebutted just as irritatingly. Max then strode over to stand beside the instructors as the next fight was called. 

Dori and Tyson took to the stage. Dori was a slim blonde dauntless born with the advantage of speed. Tyson, also Dauntless born, was a big brute of a guy who could throw a punch but not take one. 

Dori beat Tyson, but only barely, blacking out just after being declared the winner. Both were taken through to the infirmary by Four and Six, suffering concussions and a broken nose between them. 

During the fight, all Zenith could think was ouch, that doesn’t look good, Tyson. Come on! Man up! Grow a pair and walk it off dude! By the end of the fight, Zenith was ashamed that so many of the boys were being taken down by girls.

And worried that he would be in their place next time.

It wasn’t until Zoe and Ricky managed to knock each other out simultaneously, tying their bout that Zenith began to worry about how many of his fellow initiates were ending up in the infirmary. 

Ricky revived almost immediately, however Zoe didn’t wake up. 

“Alright, people who have already fought, is anyone willing to assist me in getting these two to the infirmary?” Christina asked, looking at the crowd of initiates and gesturing to Zoe and Ricky.

Zenith didn’t know what made him step forward, but he did. Picking up Zoe in his arms, he was surprised at how heavy she was, not being as light as a feather like he thought she would be. Carrying her bridal style, he walked down the maze of corridors towards the infirmary.

They were nearly there when she began to stir in his arms. 

“Who are you? Where are we going?” were the first of the many slurred questions she started to ask him, trying to sit up in his arms.

“It’s Zenith, and we’re heading to the infirmary. You took quite a knock to the head” he replied, cautiously watching for her reaction.

“Oh. Okay” She replied sleepily, and settled back into his arms.

“Don’t got to sleep. You might have a concussion. It’s normally a side effect when you try head-butting someone to end a fight.” He told her.

“He started it” she murmured in response.

“Well you certainly finished it” Zenith laughed. “Just remember next time that head-butts hurt both people involved!”

Sleepily, she laughed with him.

Even after he deposited her on a hospital bed, Zenith stayed by her side and kept talking to her. Training could wait.


	26. Friends with a Prior

SIX POV

 

After the events of that afternoon, Tris couldn’t help but take the opportunity to talk to Valkyrie at dinner when she spotted the girl sitting alone. She smiled to herself as she made her way over to the mostly empty table. Since Valkyrie had won her fight so quickly and efficiently, Tris hadn’t failed to notice that the other initiates were more than a little scared of her, never letting her get close to them or daring to sit next to her in the mess hall. 

Plonking down into the seat with typical dauntless carelessness, she smiled at the slightly startled blonde and began to eat her food.

After finishing most of her meal in silence, Tris sent a glance to Four where he was seated with their friends. He seemed to be surviving without her but was continuously sending her confused and worried looks. Placating him with a smile, she turned to Valkyrie.

“Hey, you seem kind of quiet. Are you ok?” she asked carefully.

”Yeah, I’m fine.” The blonde answered with a smile.

“Deliberately sitting on your own for some reason?” Tris asked, pushing for a conversation.

“Yeah. Better not to make friends, especially if they could become factionless at the drop of a hat.” She replied, frowning slightly even as she did so.

“Friends can be useful during initiation too though. They are just as much of a strength as they are a weakness.” Tris pointed out.

Valkyrie merely nodded. They sat in silence for a while before Tris tried to get her talking again.

“Sooo, are you going to tell me how the heck you went from the worst in class to the best in the space of less than a minute?” She asked the blonde, tilting her head to observe her. 

Valkyrie smirked into her food, before turning her head so that she could meet Tris’ gaze.

“Actually I have been holding back so that others can’t pre-empt my moves when I fight.” Tris couldn’t stop her eyebrows from raising at that announcement, but the blonde was undeterred and continued speaking. “I’ve been practicing early in the mornings since initiation started, since Eric was apparently spying on me he found out, and has since started training with me.”

“Interesting. Four has never been wrong about an initiates abilities before, so we were thinking whatever training you had with Eric must have been hellishly effective.” She paused. “Now that I think about it, your explanation makes much more sense” She chuckled.

“Eric said that Four was usually able to read initiates like a book. He finds it quite amusing that your boyfriend was so wrong about me.” Valkyrie answered with a smirk as Tris looked up with surprise.

“How did you know?” she asked quietly.

“About you and Four?” She asked and Tris nodded. “You two are not as subtle as you think. He can’t keep his eyes off you and you brush up against him every time you walk past each other. The Erudite part of me acknowledges that as classic couple behaviour.” Valkyrie went on to explain.

“Is it that easy?” Tris asked incredulously.

“Yep. Same as knowing that Four was definitely a Transfer, not a Dauntless Born. I’m pretty sure you were too.” Valkyrie replied.

The blonde looked at the clock on the wall behind the leaders table and rose to her feet, collecting her tray as she did so.

“I’d better go. I was hoping to go for a run this evening.” She said with a smile. Looking back over her shoulder as she went to walk away, Valkyrie added “It was nice talking with you Six.”

“Tris. My friends call me Tris.” Tris told her.

Tris didn’t miss the smile that took over the blonde’s face as she walked out the door.


	27. Interrorgation

FOUR POV

He was coming home after visiting Zeke when a loud laugh echoed down the hallway to greet him. He knew immediately who the laughter belonged to. He would know that sound anywhere. 

Tris.

He then heard another voice join in with hers, this one was unfamiliar. Yet at the same time he knew he’d heard it before. It wasn’t any of their other friends. After dinner he and the others had gone to Zeke and Shauna’s place to talk about initiation. Well more specifically, about a certain blonde Erudite initiate. Zeke had retrieved the footage from the cameras and Four had requested a chance to play it back and see exactly how Valkyrie had managed to do what she had done.

Upon reviewing the footage, it had become immediately clear to him that this girl had been training for years. Her actions were steady and sure, her technique pretty much converted to muscle memory, and her movements had a degree of flow to them that only came with a lot of practice.

She hadn’t just learned this out of a book. She had fought before.

Pushing the blonde out of his mind, he instead returned to the situation at hand, focusing on identifying the voice that appeared to be coming from his apartment. He reached the door to find it slightly open and completely unlocked. 

Tris never left the door unlocked. She hated the idea of someone like Peter coming into her home when he wasn’t there with her. If they weren’t a member of their group of friends, then…

Four hesitated no longer.

He opened the door to their apartment, only to find Tris and Valkyrie chatting away in the living area gossiping like old friends.

‘But it wasn’t how you beat him. I was the one who dropped him off at the infirmary. He was just waking up when I left. The look on his face…” Tris dissolved into a fit of giggles.

“Oh my gods, I bet it was priceless! I wish I could have seen it.” Valkyrie replied, giggling too.

Tris finally noticed he was standing in the doorway.

“Oh, good, your home. Come sit with us. We were just talking about training today.” She said, and Valkyrie greeted him with a smile.

“Really? Well just let me grab a cup of coffee and I’ll be right there.” He replied casually, putting a fake smile on his face. Tris noticed this, and sent him a questioning look, but made no comment.

Their conversation continued as he made his coffee and took a seat, listening to what they were saying carefully, and keeping a close eye on the initiate before him.

All the while he was simmering inside. As if humiliating him that afternoon wasn’t enough. Here she was now, in his house, talking to his girlfriend.

He tried to be chill about it, he really did. But even though all of his friends seemed to like the sassy initiate before him, he couldn’t help feeling in his gut that something was odd about her. 

Something was wrong. 

No transfer initiates ever got along with Eric, not even those from his faction of origin. No transfers were ever confident to the point of holding back during training. And no transfers went through initiation without at least one friend. 

She was hiding something.

And Four was willing to bet Eric knew what it was. Eric who killed Amar, the man who had saved him, kept him safe. Eric who hunted the divergent, like Uriah, like Tris. Eric who was cruel and sadistic to all others, especially Christina. Eric who was never not up to something bad.

She was hiding something, and it had to be bad.

She couldn’t be trusted.

That alone was reason for him not to want her around Tris.

Valkyrie seemed to have let herself relax, she was slouched comfortably against the arm of the sofa and laughed freely with Tris. As Four watched on in silence, he realised this was probably the best chance he would ever have at finding out what she was hiding. Putting his coffee down on a side table, he waited for a break in the conversation before interceding.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I was wondering, where did you say learned to fight?” He asked calmly, watching carefully for her reaction.

The blonde froze, a wary look taking over her face, along with something very similar to panic.

“I didn’t” She replied carefully, her attention now solely on him.

“Oh, well, care to enlighten me then?” He pressed.

“I had a hard childhood” She eventually replied, face completely deadpan and her guard well and truly back up.

“Oh. Care to….elaborate?” he asked, staring her down as he did so.

Once again the blonde froze, but she kept his gaze, not looking away. He was about to order her to tell him when Tris got up off her side of the couch.

“Excuse us for a moment, would you?” She asked, sending a smile to Valkyrie as she grabbed his arm, pulling him into their bedroom. “What are you doing?” she whispered to him, eyes wide.

“She’s hiding something. I want to know what it is.” He whispered back.

‘So? Everyone has secrets Tobias. Why do you absolutely have to know hers?” Tris replied, rolling her eyes.

“Whatever she’s hiding, it’s bad. We can’t trust her!” He hissed.

“Do you have any proof?” Tris asked quietly.

‘No, but…” He began.

“Then you have no reason to persecute her like this. She has chosen to become Dauntless. Whatever she is hiding about her past is exactly that. Past. The past doesn’t matter, remember, Faction before Blood?” 

He looked down, slightly ashamed but still not willing to admit that she was possibly right.

“And not everyone wants their story known, Tobias. Surely you of all people can understand that.” Tris replied soothingly, placing a hand on his chest. “When she realizes she can trust us, then she will probably tell us what she’s hiding anyway. Just give it time.”

He pulled an interesting face but he did let it go.


	28. Early Morning Wake Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, another chapter for you. Please bare with me when I am slow to update. Zenith is still not well, and I have University Exams at the moment. Writing fiction is not my greatest priority at the moment.
> 
> Also a note: This fiction is for the enjoyment of the authors as much as it is for the readers. we have a set direction in which it is going, and have already planned most of the chapters. Please respect the pace we have chosen. If you can't deal with it, well there are always one-shots here on AO3 for your perusal.

VALKYRIE POV

 

It was 2:59am on the morning of the transfers’ fourth day in Dauntless, and all were fast asleep in their beds, completely out of it after another hard day of training.

All but one. Keeping to the shadows as usual, Valkyrie slipped through the maze of corridors, headed back towards the dorms. So far her mission had been successful, and if she could just avoid being caught before getting back to where she was supposed to be then she would have nothing to worry about. Nobody would ever know of her impromptu field trip to the camera room. 

Hopping into bed, she slipped silently under the blankets and feigned sleep with only thirty seconds to spare. She silently counted the seconds as they passed, and by the time she got to ten, the footsteps of one of the guards on nightshift echoed through the open door as he checked all of them were accounted for. Obviously seeing nothing amiss, Valkyrie’s count had barely gotten to twenty six when she heard him turn and begin to walk away. However, no sooner than the guard had passed the door of the transfer dorm, all hell broke loose.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!!!!

The rest of the initiates shrieked and shot upright in their beds as the constant sound of gunfire echoed loudly through the dormitory. Many rolled over, hitting the floor with painful sounding thuds, as they tried to crawl under their flimsy beds for cover from the threat the noise represented. Outside in the maze of caverns, the panicked yells of Dauntless members could barely be heard over the gunfire as everyone who had been asleep scrambled for weapons. 

Within a minute of the gunfire first being heard, an alarm started blaring around the compound, and Valkyrie started having trouble keeping herself from bursting into laughter as the whole compound went into panic mode. Just when she thought she getting her laugher back under control, Four came running in and ordered everyone to get to the pit. Grabbing her shoes, she and the other initiates started running to follow his order, only to run into the other instructors just outside the dorm room entrance. Everyone was about to move towards the pit as a group when the alarm and the gunfire sounds cut out. Someone must have found her computer programme and disabled it. With the noise gone, she looked around to see exactly what the response to her prank had been.

Then Valkyrie really did lose it, but she wasn’t the only one. 

Standing in nothing but his dauntless symbol covered boxers, clutching one of her swords with the other strapped to his back, was Eric. Valkyrie couldn’t help but burst out laughing, pointing to Eric as she literally fell to the floor in a fit of giggles. Four and Tris both seemed to smile a little when they realised why she was cracking up, and Uriah fought to stifle his own laughter. When she had calmed down enough, Valkyrie looked directly at Eric.

“You’d better put it away before you poke someone's eye out” She said, barely managing to keep her laughter in check long enough to add “And Dauntless boxers? Really?” before bursting into giggles again.

“Well, at least it’s not a butter knife” Tris remarked and the other instructors burst into laughter.

“Speaking of putting swords away, better deal with the one residing in your boxers too Eric.” Uriah added, before cracking up again as the leader turned a little red.

“Eric, Four, what the hell is going on around here?” Max bellowed as he came striding around a corner, the other leaders, Tori and Harrison, close behind him. “And why are you only wearing boxers?” he added when he noticed Eric’s attire.

“I just happened to be asleep in my boxers when everything went to shit around here!” Eric replied indignantly. “I have no clue where the gunfire came from, but as you probably already know it was all round the compound.” Max sighed and looked around the assembled group before speaking once more.

“Somebody find Eric something to cover up with, I can’t take him seriously like this.” 

Valkyrie took that as an instruction and nipped back inside the dorm. Grabbing the blanket off the bed nearest the door, while noting with a small smile that the bed belonged to Marco and he would be without a blanket for the rest of the night, she quickly ran back to the group.

“…My guess is that this is some form of prank.” Eric was just saying as she returned.

As she threw him the blanket he shot her a grateful look and wrapped it around his waist.

“Who and how?” Max asked, glaring at the Dauntless-Borns and Uriah.

“Actually I can answer that.” Zeke said as he ran up to the group from the direction of the control room. “Well, not the who. I have no clue who pulled this off, though I could give you a description of what skill set they would need, but the how is relatively simple.”

“Go on then” a disgruntled looking Harrison replied.

“Well whoever did this basically wrote a programme in computer code on the control room computers, and after hacking into the intercom system, set the trigger for this code as a timer, thus giving them enough time to back track, scrub any evidence left behind, and make a clean getaway from the control room.” Zeke summarised.

“English please Zeke, it is 3:10am.” Max growled and Harrison huffed.

“What he means is that someone hacked the announcement system and programmed the gunfire sounds to be played all over the compound at 3am. They also left no trace in the computer software so it will be had to catch them.” Harrison translated.

“So any clues on who it was Zeke?” Max asked.

“Like I said, I have no idea. The person would have to know where all the cameras are in the compound, be familiar with the control room set up, have mad hacking skills, the ability to differentiate computer systems, and a penchant for mischief making.” Zeke replied.

Everyone was silent until Eric started to chuckle.

“You do realize that you are the only person that I know of in the entire compound with that skill set, right Zeke?” He replied.

“But I swear I didn’t do it!” Zeke exclaimed, suddenly looking uneasy as the other three Dauntless Leaders glared at him.

“How about we finish this talk after breakfast, in my office Mr. Petrad.” Max replied with a serious face. “For now, let’s get back to bed.” And with that, Max turned and strode off, all of the leaders but Eric following in his wake.

“You heard Max, head back to bed. We have a long day of training ahead of us.” Four said, as he and Tris turned to head off. Valkyrie was about to head back into the dorm when Eric spoke up.

“Not you Valkyrie. Your punishment for that laughing fit earlier is extra early training. Come with me.” 

The look he threw her as he said it prevented her from voicing her dissent, so she just followed him quietly. They were walking over the chasm when she finally spoke up.

“OK so what are we really doing?” She asked and he stopped to look at her for a second before answering.

“I wasn’t kidding. We are going to do training, I just need to get dressed first.” He said evenly.

“What are we going to work on though? You said it yourself that I am nearly perfect at everything except rifle shooting. And we can’t practice that this early in the morning – it would keep too many people up.” She pointed out.

“Who said it was you who was going to be learning anything?” He replied with a smirk. “I think it’s high time you taught me how to use these swords of yours, don’t you?”

“Nope, not even close mister.” She replied with a cheeky smirk. “You are not using my swords. It would be pointless, they are perfectly balanced for me but probably too light for you. Before you can train, first you must make your weapons.”  
He threw her a disgruntled look but accepted her logic quickly. At his acceptance, Valkyrie looked around and realised she had no idea where they were walking.

“Where are we?” She asked quietly, looking back at the stairs they had just climbed.

“This is the leaders’ hallway, where the top people in our faction live. For future note, you can’t come up here without an escort by one of the leaders.” He replied in an informative tone.

“Why are we here?” She asked carefully.

“My apartment. Where else am I going to find my clothes?” He replied in a somewhat patronising tone and walked to the third door on the right side of the corridor they were now in. Fitting his key into the lock carefully, he opened the door and ushered her in before heading for the bedroom to get dressed.

The apartment was nice, the walls varying shades of blue and black. The kitchen and lounge were open plan, with what appeared to be a bathroom, laundry, and master bedroom all individually blocked off by walls. Bookshelves lined one corner with a desk nestled amongst them to form a sort of home office. Overall, it felt very…homey. The exact opposite of what one would expect of a man like Eric. 

He quickly re-emerged from his room, now fully dressed in his usual combat boots, dark pants, dark T-shirt, and black vest.

“Nice place you’ve got” Valkyrie noted, trying to make conversation. 

“It’s ok. Could use a bit of work still, but I’m happy with it for the moment.” Eric replied as he made himself some tea and she pulled herself up onto a bar stool to watch. Noticing her watching, he asked if she wanted a cup too.

“I can’t eat or drink anything this early. It’ll make me feel ill. But thanks for the offer.” she politely declined.

“So” He said between mouthfuls “What do we need to do to make me a set of swords?”

“Well, firstly we need to check out what equipment is needed. Does Dauntless have a forge?” She asked.

“Yes, but it doesn’t get used very often. The factionless make most of our weapons nowadays.” He replied, raising an eyebrow. “The forge is located on the lower levels of the compound, near to where the net is located. With me being a leader we shouldn’t have any problems with access.”

“Sweet, and the forge comes fully equipped with tools for metalworking, like an anvil, fires, and hammers?” She asked.

“Yep” he replied.

“Ok, the next thing is to get some measurements as to what size and weight your swords will need to be, so that from there we can source the metal needed.” She answered. “Do you have a tape measure or anything similar?”

“Yep, just a sec” Eric replied before heading over to his home office area. After shuffling around for a few minutes, he returned with a pen, some paper, and a tape measure in hand.

“Ok, stand still for a moment while I measure how long it needs to be” Valkyrie told him, before kneeling in front of him and beginning to measure what she needed to.

After a few moment, Eric starts to get fidgety.

“Can you not stay still?” Valkyrie scolds, looking up with what she knows to be an amused scowl.

“You have no idea what you are doing to me, do you?” Eric answers with gritted teeth. It is only then that she notices that he flinches every time her fingers brush his leg as she measures him. That and the ‘sword’ Uriah pointed out earlier has not gone down in size, more likely gotten more prominent.

“Nope I have no clue. Please enlighten me” She replies, batting her eyes at him as her fingers accidentally brush his leg again.

“I won’t lie. Seeing you on your knees is distracting for me.” He replied through gritted teeth.

“A truth for a truth. Seeing you in nothing but your boxers this morning wasn’t exactly beneficial to my focus either.” She gave him another cheeky smirk, noting that his eyes blew wide with what was probably lust before he reigned in his emotions and put his mask back into place. 

“But in all truthfulness, don’t get used to seeing me on my knees. It doesn’t happen often, if at all.” She added, watching his eyes blow out again as he was caught off guard by her fingers brushing higher on his thigh.

“Careful Valkyrie, I don’t want to become known as the instructor that’s fucking an initiate.” He almost growled at her.

“Well that’s good, because I don’t want people to think that I have to perform sex acts to get into Dauntless.” She murmured with a smirk.

With the flick of her wrist, she retracted the tape measure and went back to her seat at the kitchen island. Quickly jotting down the measurements, she calculated the length of the sword, and exactly how much metal they would need.

“Due to your height and stature, your sword needs to be around three feet long, and one and a half inches wide. The handle should be around six inches long and we will need leather to wrap it with. Also the handle will need to be predominantly made of wood. We are going to need two lots of steel, each around a meter long and two inches thick and 40 inches of hardwood of some kind, as well as some leather. When you’ve sourced all that, let me know and we can start making them.” She wrote all this out for him. 

Standing up she strode over to him, pressing the list into his hand, noting with amusement his flinching at the contact between their hands before moving even closer to the point where she was almost pressing up against him.

Looking him straight in the eyes, she said one thing, before turning with a flick of her hair and striding out the door of his apartment.

“For now, it’s time for breakfast. Do something about the tent in your pants, will you? I’ll see you in training later.”

She laughed as she strode down the corridor to his muffled curses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos if you care, constructive criticism welcome.


	29. Murder He Screamed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE"RE BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry for the wait!
> 
> Enjoy :)

VALKYRIE POV

It was now a week into training, and Valkyrie was starting to get used to life in the depths of Dauntless.

The early morning training sessions with Eric had continued for three days before he was completely satisfied with her level of physical combat proficiency, and they had moved on to designing Eric’s swords after the day’s fights during the evenings. They were nearly past the design stages and would soon move on to the steel forming work for the blades.

Valkyrie was snapped out of her daydreaming by Four yelling for everyone to start moving towards the training room. As most of her fellow initiates were with her in the dining hall, they all moved en mass down the maze of corridors. Most were half asleep as usual, trudging along at a pace that even a snail could beat.

But as the first person in their group trudged around the corner and through the doors to the training room, a loud girlish scream caused the others to pick up the pace. As they all came running round the corner, many stopped dead in shock.

In the middle of the mat that they usually fought on, a large rack of palisade like spikes was set up. What appeared to be blood was running down most of them, and pooling on the floor of the surrounding area. In the middle of the cluster, on the largest of the spikes, was what appeared to be a body.

Upon seeing it, one of the female Candor transfers, fell to the ground with an echoing thud.

_Interesting._

Although the sight before her appeared to be gory enough for reality, the first thing that had hit Valkyrie when she had walked in had not been the visual aspect of the scene.

No.

The first thing she had noticed was the smell – or in this case the apparent lack of it.

Valkyrie was no stranger to the smell of blood – a scent that was heavily metallic and salty, and that she had become more than familiar with during her, shall we say somewhat _unconventional_ , upbringing. The lack of smell led her to conclude that the bloody scene before her was a fake.

However, for the others in the room, realization of this fact was a bit more delayed. By that, Valkyrie noted that the guy who had screamed upon first discovering the display before them was still whimpering, and another of the three Candor girls had joined her friend in a dead faint.

Upon reaching the same conclusion as her, Four and Tris had both moved closer to the mess and started tutting about having to clean it up before any training could progress. Eric, meanwhile, was not so subtly making some sort of plan on how to punish the prankster responsible – at least that was what Valkyrie could deduce from his body language anyhow.

All of the initiates looked slightly shaken for a while, even after the scene had been cleaned up. However, for one initiate something wasn’t adding up. Valkyrie’s initial assessment hadn’t picked out any possible culprits in their group, but upon paying closer attention to the body language of Zenith, Valkyrie noted a hint of pride in his posture when Six/Tris had pointed out that a lot of attention to detail had been put into the prank. Added to that he seemed to recover from his ‘shock’ quicker than any other initiate present, and in no time a smirk was gracing his face, the familiar twinkle of mischief standing out in his brown eyes.

Both the smirk and the twinkle quickly vanished when Eric demanded a warm up of 100 push ups from each initiate though.

Although Valkyrie kept an eye on Zenith for the rest of the day, nothing else really happened and before long it was time for dinner. As the initiates and their instructors filed out, Eric grabbed her arm, holding her back.

“I can practically see smoke coming out your ears Valkyrie. What’s bothering you?” he asked wearily, the early morning wakeup call clearly having an effect on him now.

“Zenith.” Was all she deigned to reply. If he didn’t catch onto her train of thought then he definitely couldn’t say he was from Erudite.

“Ah, good to know someone else caught onto that.” Eric mused. “That boy’s poker face is appalling. One would think he would improve after hanging around Uriah and Zeke.”

Valkyrie sniggered at the thought, relieved that she hadn’t been the only one to notice. Eric couldn’t help but raise an amused eyebrow at her response before looking back to the open door.

“We’d better get going, or else there won’t be any food left, especially with all of you initiates eating your weight in food each meal.” He noted and started to walk away before pausing as if mid thought just before the exit.

“Oh and if you ever tease me again like you did this morning initiate, I will not be held responsible for my actions.” Eric warned as he strode out the door, his voice taking on a deeper timbre that Valkyrie found affected her in all the wrong ways…..and right places.

She followed a second later after shaking herself out of the trance that had left her unashamedly staring at his arse.

The resulting smirk on his face as she sped to catch up to him did not go unnoticed by the blonde.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let us know what you guys think!
> 
> Valkyrie & Zenith


	30. Hair From Hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set on the same day as the last chapter. just a note - Tris and Christina were only instructing initiates in the morning and had the afternoon off.

CHRISTINA POV

As much as she loved life in Dauntless, Christina missed the colour and brightness of living above ground. Sure, she came from a world of black and white and colour was rarely seen inside the Candor compound, but from the vantage point of her apartment in the Merciless Mart She had been able to see most of the city.

As a result, Christina had become an avid people watcher.  She watched on as the Dauntless ran rampant through the city, the Abnegation shuffled, blending into the shadows, the Amity skipped in their bright garb to and from wherever they spent their time besides their fields, and the Erudite strode everywhere with a purpose, the blue of their clothing stark against the greyish-white of the concrete around them.

It was this leisure time spent people watching that she missed the most, because it relaxed her.

Hence not long after she became a full member of Dauntless she made it compulsory for the girls to have a pamper day.  A single day a week where she could relax in the company of her female friends. This consisted of a variety of more female orientated activities, such as shopping, massages, spa treatments, or hair styling. Today was a hair styling day.

Shauna, Tris, Lynn, Laurren, Marlene, and Christina herself had packed out the Dauntless Salon and were currently in the process of having their hair treated with an anti-breakage serum. With all six of them getting the same treatment at the same time, it was taking a while longer than usual for the attendants to get it all done, but this just left more opportunity for gossiping.

“So Shauna, anything new happening out at the wall?” Christina asked as the attendant applied more of the whitish green gunk to her hair.

“Not really. Other than maintenance to the main gate it’s pretty much the same as always.” Shauna replied in a bored tone. “What about your work with the initiates? Anything interesting happening?” She asked Tris and Christina in return.

“Oh that’s right! You’ve been on shift the last three weeks, haven’t you?” Christina recalled excitedly. “You won’t know about the next Dauntless prodigy that we have in this year’s initiate group!”

“Nah, I haven’t heard anything. I only got back last night and Zeke was working in the control room, so I haven’t had the chance to catch up on the gossip yet.” Shauna replied, sounding more curious by the second. “So who is this year’s probable prodigy?”

“Her name is Valkyrie. She’s from Erudite, and she won her first fight by knock out in less than a minute.” Tris replied with a small smile.

“Less than a minute?” Shauna replied, shooting a surprised look between Tris and Christina. “I’m guessing she shows good form on the bags too?”

“Not at first, that’s why we were all quite surprised that she won.” Christina replied enthusiastically. “Four was so certain that she would be out before the end of stage one! Her work on the punching bags was pathetic, to the point where we weren’t certain she could ever throw a punch properly. Eric was the only one who thought she might stand a chance in the fights. She was pitted up against the strongest of the other initiates too.”

“But it turns out the entire time leading up to the fights Valkyrie was hiding her abilities. The only person that knew she could really fight was Eric, and he only knew because he walked in on her training every day before everyone else woke up.” Tris added. “Four was so sure of her lack of ability that he placed a 100points bet with Eric on her losing within a few minutes.”

Shauna raised an eyebrow.

“And when he lost, Valkyrie walked straight up to Eric and demanded to be paid some of it for her part in it.” Christina giggled.

Shauna raised the other eyebrow to join its counterpart in a look of shock.

“And it gets even better. Uriah told me that when Eric only gave her 15 points, she turned around and demanded more, so he ended up giving her 25!” Marlene added incredulously.

“You have got to be kidding me!” Shauna gasped. “Has Eric tried to get her back or anything?”

“Nope. Instead he’s helping her train in the mornings. She has won every fight, with the time it takes her to win getting shorter every time. The extra training is keeping her three steps ahead and she and Eric seem to get along very well.” Christina replied.

“A little too well, or so Four thinks.” Tris sighed. “He’s just so suspicious of her! He even says that because she knows how to fight and hid it that we can’t trust her.”

“Well, she is buddies with Eric…” Christina replied uneasily.

“That doesn’t mean anything” Lynn replied tersely. “Have any of you notices that she seems to make him act differently? He’s …… less of an arsehole than usual.”

“Tris, you’ve talked to her, you sat with her at dinner and invited her around to your place. What’s she like?” Laurren asked.

“She’s really nice actually.” Tris replied with a smile. “A little bit wary of making friends this early on in initiation, but otherwise just like we were this time last year.”

“We shouldn’t judge until after initiation though. That’s when we’ll get to see who she really is. At the moment she’ll be in survival mode.” Marlene suggested.

“Agreed.” Christina replied. “And with that conclusion, it must be nearly time for the big hair reveal.” She added excitedly.

“Chris, we’re just getting it strengthened, it’s not like it’s going to look any different!” Tris pointed out.

“But still!” Christina replied and they all turned around so that they weren’t facing the mirrors.

One by one the stylists rinsed each of the girl’s hair, and to start with everything turned out perfectly. However, when the stylists got around to rinsing Shauna, Marlene, and Christina’s hair, things started to get interesting. By the time their hair was rinsed and dried, it was obvious that something had gone wrong.

“My hair is fluro green!” Shauna exclaimed, before repeating the same words again in a whimper.

“So is mine!” Marlene added in shock. “What am I going to do? Please tell me this can be undone!” She turned to the nearest stylist who sympathetically shook her head and replied that they couldn’t re-dye it for a few days.

“I’m so sorry, we just found this note on our prep station. It looks like someone switched out the strengthening serum for hair dye.” One of the stylists, a middle-aged lady with pink and black short cropped hair, told the girls. “If it helps, we’ll fix it up for free in a couple of days, but for now there isn’t much we can do.”

“Well I like it!” Christina replied, running her fingers through her now bright green hair, mussing it up a little bit to give it extra volume.

The stylist looked a little more relieved after that, and the girls left for dinner without paying as she insisted.

“If Zeke had anything to do with this, he’s going to be sleeping on the couch for a month.” Shauna announced as they were walking out the door.

“Ditto for Uriah.” Marlene added, nervously running her fingers through her long tresses.

And with their heads held high, they turned the corner and walked in the door of the dining room.

As they walked in, the noise continued for the most part, but the boys at their table went notably silent. All of them except Will were left gaping. Will just smiled at Christina.

“Nice hair hon.” he said as Christina took her seat and gave him a one-armed hug.

“I think so too. Not bad for the result of a prank.” She replied casually, and Zeke and Uriah burst into laughter.

“Someone mixed up something at the hair salon as a prank?” Zeke laughed.

“Why haven’t we tried that?” Uriah joined in.

“Don’t think for a second that you are off the hook for this Ezekiel Petrad” Shauna hissed and Zeke stopped laughing went pale. Uriah noticed the look Marlene was giving him and did the same.

“We didn’t do it!” They both protested at the same time.

“That’s what you always say!” Both girls replied.

The rest of their table burst into laughter and dinner continued.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos if you care and thanks for reading!
> 
> Valkyrie & Zenith


	31. Close Shaves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with us guys, we know how irritating it is that we aren't updating regularly.

MAX POV

Some things about being the Head Dauntless Leader simply made one’s life hell.

One such thing happened to be having to meet with the other leaders of the city. Granted, not all of them were that bad – even if Johanna was a little too cheerful and Marcus a bit too self-righteous. However there was one that really got on his nerves, who never even hesitated to insult his faction.

Added to the fact that it was a week and a half into initiation – aka he had better things to be doing as it was the busiest time of the year – he really wasn’t looking forward to this meeting.

His footsteps echo in his ears as he strode purposefully towards his office, accompanied by the sharp clicking noise of his guest’s high heels. 

Well, ‘guest’ wasn’t really the right term. More like egotistical, demanding, somewhat maniacal source of useless knowledge that seemed to think she had a higher rank than him. Jeanine held her head high as she followed him, glaring at anyone who dared to cross her path despite not even being a member of the faction she was visiting.

Max came to a stop. After unlocking the door he was about to open and walk through it when he heard a disgruntled harrumph from the now scowling blonde.

He threw her a questioning look.

“Trust Dauntless to be full of uneducated brutes lacking in social virtues and manners” She stated sourly. “Even their head of leadership can’t hold a door open for a lady like myself.”

_Really, you? A lady? If only I didn’t have to play nice for inter-faction cooperation purposes I would give you a piece of my mind bitch_ Max quietly thought to himself, scowling.

With a flourish and a slight sarcastic bow, he then swung the door to his office wide open for her.

Buzzzzzzzzzz!

No sooner than he had opened the door, a beam of light shot out of the opening and went straight for Jeanine’s head. She barely had time to duck slightly to the side before it hit her, slicing through her hair leaving her partially bald on one side of her head.

As the beam quickly faded, Jeanine’s hands shot up to the newly bald part of her scalp and a shocked whimper escaped her mouth. Max stood frozen in shock, waiting for a further reaction. When Jeanine recovered enough to glare at him, he didn’t hold back his thoughts.

“Still want people to open doors for you around here?” he quipped, raising an eyebrow.

In response, Jeanine let out a somewhat muffled scream, turned on her heel, and stormed back towards the entrance to the compound, covering her hair in mortification as she went.

Max watched her leave with amused relief, not at all attempting to stop her. However, as she turned the corner, someone further down the corridor behind him let out a muffled giggle, catching his attention.

ZENITH POV

Zenith couldn’t help but giggle when Jeanine stormed away missing a chunk of her hair, and progressed to full blown laughing out loud when his father turned around and noticed him standing there.

He didn’t even care that he just got caught – it was so worth it just to see the looks on their faces.

His father gave out a sigh as he approached, grabbing Zenith by the arm and dragging him into his office. No sooner than the door had slammed closed did the lecture begin.

“Nathaniel Zenith Thompson! How many time have I told you not to muck around with the advanced weaponry from storage! You could have killed a faction leader today! Do you have any idea how hard that would be to explain to Erudite and the council?” He scolded, clearly exasperated by Zenith’s actions.

“But dad, she was bad-mouthing our faction and treating you like her personal slave! She deserved it, and the look on her face! Even you can’t deny it was priceless” Zenith whined in response.

Rolling his eyes, Max sighed and allowed himself a smile.

“Yes it was quite funny. Especially since she’s going to have a hard time covering that bald spot.” He acquiesced before putting his leader face back on. “It cannot happen again though Nate. It’s not a prank if it actually causes harm, it’s a crime - am I clear?”

“Yes dad” Zenith replied, actually looking a little ashamed.

“Now you better get back to training, I don’t want you to end up factionless because you pissed Eric off too much…” Max was interrupted by Harrison storming into his office!

“Max, your son has gone too far! Jeanine wants him punished and as faction ambassador to Erudite I am inclined to agree with her demands!” He spat.

Max sighed. “I am well aware Harrison, I was about to assign Zenith to morning kitchen duty for a month”

“That’s not good enough Max! He assaulted a faction leader with a deadly weapon! The only fitting punishment is making him factionless!” Harrison spat, advancing a step towards the now panicking Zenith.

“ENOUGH!” Max bellowed. “I am the head of this faction. My decision is final. If you cannot respect that, it is you who needs to leave!”

With a frustrated growl, Harrison waved his fist at Max, before rethinking who he was threatening and storming off down the hallway, almost literal smoke billowing from his ears.

“I may not be able to stop him next time. Don’t do it again.” Max said as Zenith left his office and quickly headed back to training.

“And enjoy your month of early morning kitchen duty!” Zenith heard his father shout down the hallway after him, causing him to groan.

He hated early mornings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos if you care!

**Author's Note:**

> Please review! Kudos much loved!


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